Originally Posted by
etudiant
That was very much the thrust of an Adelphi paper I read long ago.
The author, likely of Arabic origin judging by his name, emphasized that mutual respect among nations requires some degree of mutual fear.
Otherwise, the lesser states are to China as the Delian League was to the Athenians.
Here we go back to Rationality and where it falls down.
Wars are primarily done for economic reasons, generally to do with theft or attempted theft. All you need is someone to invade somewhere like some barren islands sparsely populated off coast of say South America, Tell everybody we are keeping them if any attempt made to retake then you will detonate a nuke.