War is a huge escalation - usually when two countries see no other avenue than to fight it out. Most wars are fought over borders. Land ownership is 0 sum game

War is a huge escalation - usually when two countries see no other avenue than to fight it out. Most wars are fought over borders. Land ownership is 0 sum game. Especially land blessed with natural resources. (Middle East is great example of oil wars) In the 90s imperialism was popular - if you had the manpower and weapons, you’d take land from the weak. Russia is playing land grab card against Ukraine. Hamas is playing the land grab card against Israel. Although Israel being backed by US will inflict a lot more damage. Africa is full of border conflicts for centuries. We don’t hear much about it since it’s a poor continent. The US has the world’s largest military and a big part of what they do is to ensure their allies have their borders intact (NATO, Australia, Japan, S Korea etc). So sinking some ships is likely gonna be met with some bombs on their military production facilities where missiles are made (if they figure it out). For the world’s largest military, US holds much restraint not invading other countries borders, and helping democratic countries keep their borders intact. If US unleashed colonialism card, we could be much larger than British empire. However the bitter lesson is that conquering is easy, maintaining power is way harder. Seems China is holding restraint invading Taiwan until they see a clear win with a blitz, or another peaceful avenue.