Why China and Russia will not enter Iran-Israel war

The escalating war between Israel and Iran is currently being led by two main developments that may eventually determine how this war might end. The first development is that President Trump has announced that he is giving Iran two weeks to reconsider its position before the US may take a final decision to enter the war on Israel's side. The second development is that the Iranian foreign minister is traveling to Geneva to meet the foreign ministers of European countries, as the two sides explore the possibility of finding a diplomatic solution to the problem before the US weighs its options to join the war.

Interestingly, there is also an increased debate on the subject of whether, at some stage of this ongoing conflict, the other two great powers, China and Russia, may join this war. In case they don't, it is assumed that the world will once again turn to a unipolar moment with the US acting as the de facto global hegemon. I tend to disagree with this assessment and try to justify my claim based on pure, realistic logic.

The Israeli military strikes on Iran, despite the ongoing process of negotiations between the US and Iran, once again proved the realist assumption that in the anarchic structure of the international system, states cannot be certain about each other's intentions and must continue to acquire capabilities to maintain balance of power to protect themselves. That the weak states are taken advantage of was proved in how China bore a century of humiliation from 1840 to 1940, where the Europeans and the Japanese took advantage of its weakness and vulnerability.

The same happened with Russia, which, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, became weak and vulnerable, and NATO expanded eastwards and included its former republics as member states. This disregard for Russian security by the US and its allies only happened because Russia was weak. As President Putin reoccupied the office of Russian President in 2012, Russia started contesting NATO's eastward encroachment. Russia grew powerful, became the regional hegemon and started protecting its sphere of influence.

The realist logic is based on state survival first; and to survive, great powers must continue to acquire power, enhance their capabilities and safeguard their interests at all costs. And that's what Russia did. The US never allowed Europeans to interfere in its sphere of influence in the western hemisphere, and there should be no doubt that both China and Russia go by the same strategic and realist logic and would not want outside interference in their sphere of influence.

The US premise of viewing Russia and China as posing geopolitical threats to the world is a premise based on wrong assumptions. There was a time that the US indulged in exporting liberal hegemony in the world with disregard to the power politics and the concept of balance of power, as the other two great powers, Russia and China, were weak.

The US and its western allies were able to expand NATO eastwards only because of this slack in the international system of the time. If the US decision of NATO expansion seemed rational at that time, then from the Russian perspective, Russia's decision to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO under the changed international environment of multipolarity may also be considered rational.

Professor Mearsheimer, famous realist scholar, professes the theory that all states are rational. But he also states that theories are simplifications of realities, and realities are complicated. Theories are utilised to navigate the world; and sometimes, depending on the prevailing international conditions and environment, theories may prove wrong. If in the unipolar moment the eastward expansion of NATO was a rational decision based on the realist theory of power maximisation then the Russian decision to fight war in Ukraine in the changed international environment may also be considered as a rational decision by a state acting on the realist logic of state survival and power maximisation.

To answer the question of why China or Russia will not directly participate or join the war, even if the US intervenes in the war on behalf of Israel, is also based on realist logic. If the US intervenes in this war, it will not be able to fully pivot towards the Asia-Pacific to contain China. So, from the Chinese point of view, the involvement of the US and its allies in the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East may go on forever, as that would prevent the US from deploying its assets against China to contain it.

Russia also has no interest in dominating Eastern Europe or the whole of Europe. It did that when it was the Soviet Union and had the military capability with hundreds of deployed combat divisions in Eastern European countries. Today, Russia doesn't have that capability. So, the US and Western premise of portraying Russia and China as global threats is a myth.

The US and China are two powers fueled by two different ideologies. The US ideology of liberal internationalism is on the wane as democracies all over the world are receding and autocracy, authoritarianism and nationalism are dominating the world politics. China's rise is based on the Confucian ideology of peaceful rise. But over time, China's economic capability is giving rise to its military capability based on the pure realistic logic of survival in an anarchic system.

The US also took the same route in becoming the most powerful state. The classic security dilemma guides the US-China relationship in which the rise of a great power instills fear in the mind of the existing power, thus creating global concern and fear of war.

Great powers never fight directly with each other. During the long bipolar period many proxy wars were fought, but the US and the Soviet Union never fought a direct war with each other. Great powers will continue to engage in security competition like both the Soviet Union and the US did during the Cold War, but to imagine that they will ever directly engage in a hot war is a wrong assumption.

Lastly, both the Korean War and the Vietnam War proved costly for the US, as even without directly participating in the war, the Soviet Union and China ensured that the US was not able to achieve its political objectives in these wars. Iran can rest assured that Russia and China, without directly participating in the war, will ensure that its sovereignty and territorial integrity are respected. Iran will pay a cost in engaging in this war, but it will not be the regime change or discontinuity of uranium enrichment for its civil nuclear energy.