A Splendid Little Report

On China's temptation for launching a splendid little war

Detail from Charge of the 24th and 25th Colored Infantry, July 2nd 1898 depicting the Battle of San Juan Hill. 1899 lithograph by Chicago printers Kurz and Allison. Online. Converted to JPEG and cropped. Public domain as per Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.

Wrote this for the Knowfar Institute for Strategic and Defence Studies sometime when I was a visiting (non-resident) fellow there (2015-2018). Pretty sure it was the first or second thing I penned for them, so I’m going to say 2015.

Whole point of paper was to compare and contrast a potential China takedown of Taiwan with America’s “splendid little war” with Spain during its rising phase.

Due to the report’s length, I excised the treatment of Allison’s Thucydides Trap argument. I will share that next Saturday as a separate post.

I also re-ordered the report some for ease of reading. Thus, in combination, these two edits discombobulate my endnote sequence some (but each footnote remains correct despite the gap and some out-of-sequence numbering).

Not much else to say. Paper speaks for itself. My holiday gift to subscribers.