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Why China and Russia will not enter Iran-Israel war

224 7
22.06.2025

The escalating war between Israel and Iran is currently being led by two main developments that may eventually determine how this war might end. The first development is that President Trump has announced that he is giving Iran two weeks to reconsider its position before the US may take a final decision to enter the war on Israel's side. The second development is that the Iranian foreign minister is traveling to Geneva to meet the foreign ministers of European countries, as the two sides explore the possibility of finding a diplomatic solution to the problem before the US weighs its options to join the war.

Interestingly, there is also an increased debate on the subject of whether, at some stage of this ongoing conflict, the other two great powers, China and Russia, may join this war. In case they don't, it is assumed that the world will once again turn to a unipolar moment with the US acting as the de facto global hegemon. I tend to disagree with this assessment and try to justify my claim based on pure, realistic logic.

The Israeli military strikes on Iran, despite the ongoing process of negotiations between the US and Iran, once again proved the realist assumption that in the anarchic structure of the international system, states cannot be certain about each other's intentions and must continue to acquire capabilities to maintain balance of power to protect themselves. That the weak states are taken advantage of was proved in how China bore a century of humiliation from 1840 to 1940, where the Europeans and the Japanese took advantage of its weakness and vulnerability.

The same happened with Russia, which, after the........

© The Express Tribune