Colonel Blasko made an observation a while back that to the Chinese, deterrence is an OPOBJ. That the Chinese will engage in military action against a smaller enemy in order to deter a larger enemy. The obvious example of this was the 1979 1st Sino-VN War in which the Chinese attacked Vietnam to deter a Soviet attack on them.
I got into a mini debate with a Chinese poster who saw nothing out of the ordinary about this and this has been the case for military history. I counter that I cannot think one single war dating back to the Nile-Hittie Wars in Western military history that would be the case.
However, for the Chinese, this has been normal practice ever since Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Chapter 3 to be precise.
So, the question, has anyone outside of China fought small wars in order to deter a larger one?
I got into a mini debate with a Chinese poster who saw nothing out of the ordinary about this and this has been the case for military history. I counter that I cannot think one single war dating back to the Nile-Hittie Wars in Western military history that would be the case.
However, for the Chinese, this has been normal practice ever since Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Chapter 3 to be precise.
So, the question, has anyone outside of China fought small wars in order to deter a larger one?
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