International diplomacy is like that, but every now and then some random soldiers in one of your backwater armies get drunk in some podunk border posting, murde

International diplomacy is like that, but every now and then some random soldiers in one of your backwater armies get drunk in some podunk border posting, murder some of the other side's soldiers, then suddenly you have to explain to your nutso nationalist press why a great power war is a bad idea. (The india-china border clashes are a good example of this. Or that one where a NK soldier killed somebody with an axe. Or that time japanese soldiers bribed a triad gang to attack japanese priests so they had could convince their officers to invade more of Manchuria.)