U.S. Foreign Policy and Foreign Relations: If...

U.S. Foreign Policy and Foreign Relations: If Israel attacks Iran and the US has to intervene to help Israel, then shortly after, China attacks Japan over the Diaoyu Islands,  and Japan invokes the US-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty, what should the US do?

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Anon User

4 votes by Anon User, Marc Bodnick, Ron Radu, and Greg Self

This represents a worse case scenario, but it is plausible, if not incredibly likely.  An Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would drive up oil prices, and could potentially damage the economies of several of China's trading partners.  A long term spike in oil prices coupled with a drop in demand for Chinese exports would slow down China's economic growth, raise prices and cause general unrest.  A newly installed Xi regime might take the Diaoyu Islands militarily in hopes that nationalism might overtake economic discontent - although a full on attack of Japan would be stretching plausibility a bit.

The best thing the US could do in that situation would be to pressure Japan to cede all claims they have to the Diaoyu Islands as early as possible.  At the end of the day, the downside to a military conflict with China are a lot more significant than whatever Japan loses from not owning a couple of uninhabited islands they've done nothing with in the past century or so.  Yes, they would be giving up oil deposits, but I doubt whatever oil they'd be giving up would be worth a Chinese missile attack on one of their cities.

It would not be in the US's best interest to get involved militarily.  You could, for example, assume that if the US sent a carrier group in to intervene in a military conflict, at least one ship would be sunk.  Yes, the US's military capabilities far outclass China's, but if they throw enough missiles out there, one of them is going to hit something.  And China could always just fire a nuclear cruise missile at a carrier group.  At that point, when the US suffers significant casualties, the conflict would escalate out of control.  And a full scale Sino-American war is something that nobody really wants to deal with.

The best bet would be to make concessions to placate China, and then work on creating long term strategies to contain China militarily, which would inevitably involve a remilitarized Japan.