A War - Without Nukes ?

Australian beef has now gained access to the Chinese domestic market and we are the first country to do so.  Chinese Premier Le Keqiang used the occasion to issue a gentle reminder that China will not back out of the South China sea and regards its outposts in international waters as sovereign territory. This flies in the face of international law as expressed in the " Law of the Sea "  and defies the ruling of an International court.

A lot depends on what happens next.   The world rejects China's claim and the US insists in sailing warships through these international waters and flying planes through its skies.  The Chinese have installed military weapons on these artificial islands and confrontation at times reaches trigger point. A clash would become unavoidable if China closed the waters of the South China sea to International shipping and refused entry to air traffic.    World trade passes through these waters and has done so for centuries.

That raises the question of whether war is possible between China and the United States in which nuclear weapons are not used.    There is such a precedent. Poison gas was the horror weapon in the first world war and it was extensively used on the battlefield, but not used on civilian populations.  At the start of the second world war, all the participants had poison gas stockpiles and in fact civilians were issued with gas masks in the expectation of its use - but this did not happen.

In the latter days of that war it was clear that Germany faced defeat but German V2 rockets were falling on London.  Given Hitler's ideology that German must " win the war or be destroyed " it would have been logical for him to turn to gas as a last resort.   It is quite possible that he did, and his forces ignored that order.   For whatever reason, this weapon capable of creating enormous casualties across European cities was not deployed.

The doctrine of MAD - Mutually  Assured  Destruction - in credited with preserving peace between America and the Soviet Union during the years of the " Cold War ".   Half the world was host to missile batteries with nuclear warheads aimed at the other side and a nuclear exchange may have made life on earth impossible for the survivors.    We will never know if events had triggered an actual war whether nukes would have been an unused threat, or the world would have faced Armageddon, -  but exactly that same scenario seems to be in the offing.

Chinese intentions seem to be the enigma.   China has a Communist government but seems disinterested in exporting that ideology to the world.   In contrast, the Soviet Union was intent in creating a Communist world, by using whatever force was needed.  China seems content to dominate world trade and at the same time surround itself with at least neutral neighbours who pose no threat to its borders.   Provided it makes no interference with shipping through both the South China and East China seas ownership is simply a matter of rhetorical debate.

China has border disputes with India and some other countries and some of these have degenerated into minor military clashes.   The world can live with a dispute in which China claims ownership of the South China sea and this is rejected by the rest of the world - so long as the status quo is maintained and world shipping is free to travel this waterway and air traffic is not interrupted.

Provided China accepts such a situation there is no reason such an arrangement can not continue indefinitely.