Linguistic tea leaves have proved to be uncanny harbingers of war in recent decades. They still are today. There is ample proof that political rhetoric serves not only as a precursor of wars, but also provides the impetus for them to occur and to be prosecuted. This is because language can be easily manipulated to create a false reality through speciously framing the rationale for war. Once a linguistic label is hatched, decision makers willy-nilly reinforce it like a marketing mantra to justify their having to go to war to defend their interests. As the perceived threat is vivified, conflict becomes an ineluctable outcome.
The last 60 years are illustrative of how the language of war has preceded actual conflict. The infamous Domino Theory propounded by US president Dwight Eisenhower is a classic example of how a linguistic label can blindside many to believe that the fall of French Indochina – Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia – to the communists would precipitate a domino effect in Southeast Asia. This graphic theory stoked undue alarm in the Free World headed by the US, simply because it reified the belief that communists are hell-bent on exporting its ideology by force. The theory purports that when communist North Vietnam had absorbed democratic South Vietnam, it would set the stage for Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, among others, to topple in succession. And before long, the red wave would reach Australia’s doorstep as the Japanese did in World War II. The Domino Theory thus sustained the US in prosecuting the Vietnam war for 10 years to push back North Vietnam’s attempt to reunite the country. But North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, as it turned out, never had such ambitions to export communism to the rest of the region beyond reunifying his country. In hindsight, the much-derided Domino Theory was not only alarmist but was bereft of substance. Yet it fostered a reality that was geopolitically alluring and convincing but extremely costly. As the theory gained traction, it accrued an unquestionable infallibility all of its own. The price was horrendously enormous: The Vietnam war cost more than a million Vietnamese lives, tens of thousands of American lives, consumed vast US resources, and devastated the Southeast Asian country. So much for words and theories.
The invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003 was another tragic example of reckless linguistic adventurism preceding a conflict. A case was made by Washington to invade Iraq based on the notion that the country harboured “weapons of mass destruction” which Saddam could unleashed in 45 minutes. The unfortunate rhetoric conjured visions of Iraq ever ready to use such weapons against the West, and therefore had to be neutered by way of an invasion and the removal of the Saddam regime. However, Washington could muster the support of only two countries to participate in the Iraqi invasion – Britain and Australia. And despite the invasion not being sanctioned by the United Nations, and coupled with the refusal of staunch European allies such as Germany and France to weigh in, the Coalition of the Willing was unswerving in achieving their nebulous objectives. The rest is history: Iraq was devastated, Saddam Hussein was hunted down and later executed, the lives of millions were ruined, and the stability of the Middle East suffered immensely even to this day. The invasion was a geopolitical blunder of the first order, an unspeakable tragedy wrought on Iraqis, and an indelible blot on the Coalition of the Willing. The mantra of “weapons of mass destruction” turned out to be nothing more than a damp squib of mischievously captivating rhetoric, but nonetheless inherently destructive.
Going back earlier, the “Cold War” became a term that fixated the West, thanks to the linguistic genius of Winston Churchill, and around which the so-called Free World led by the US coalesced against the Soviet Union. Geo-strategically, the label, too, also ran its course but not before pitting two superpowers – the US and the former USSR – against one another for decades and carving up the world basically into two blocs. As a label, “Cold War” gave sharper focus to what was in actuality an ideological contest between two systems – democracy versus communism. But because it was defined in such a graphic manner, it engenders a palpability that was to keep the world on edge for decades, teetering on nuclear Armageddon.
Today, once again two superpowers are locking horns, this time the US and China. The linguistic tea leaves are falling into place quickly, heralding nightmarish scenarios too frightening to imagine. The rhetoric emanating from the US and the West (read NATO) revolves around terms such as China posing an “existential threat” to them, being cast as a “strategic competitor”, a country that challenges the international “rules-based order” and undermines Western “core values”, while epithets hurled at China and the Chinese government run the gamut – “hegemon”, a “bully”, an “enemy”, an “autocratic and authoritarian regime”, “dictator Xi Jinping” – and being variously described as “expansionist, militaristic, coercive, aggressive and assertive.” The rhetoric is shrill indeed and growing shriller by the day as exemplified by the constant refrain of “existential threat” that China poses to US. On closer scrutiny, the label is freighted with insidious connotations. Simply put, the US sees China as challenging its very existence, survival and global primacy; in other words, it is cast as a life-and-death struggle for Americans. By extension, it leaves one party, in this case the US, with no choice but to pre-empt such a mortal threat to their very existence by annihilating the enemy first. Characterising the Chinese government as a “regime” is equally revealing: the label suggests an absence of legitimacy and credibility especially in the international arena, on a par with the likes of the Myanmar and Taliban regimes which have been so designated. In fact, Australian media and politicians have for some time unfailingly reference the Chinese government as a regime, so does Western leaders. Even African countries headed by tinpot dictators are not characterised in the same manner. All this points to one fact: the demonisation of China, whether deserved or undeserved, is growing apace. Of course, a demonised and discredited China would be easier to deal with when it comes to garnering global support in an eventuality. Grey and nebulous labels like “the defence of our core values” can also morph into powerful rationale for going to war. It is thus obvious that the totality of the negative labelling of China by the US and the West perforce paints an apocalyptic future soon to be played out – the final battle between good (the West) and evil (China). As for “rules-based order” it connotes a China that flouts international norms – whether alleged or real – and is therefore viewed as a rogue state that is antithetical to global peace and security. In this regard, it is interesting that the foreign affairs spokesman for New Zealand’s centre-right National Party, Gerry Brownlee, said recently he was concerned AUKUS (the US, UK and Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine deal) was painting China as an “enemy” that needed to be contained. Even NATO has got into the act of late, with its director-general Jens Stoltenberg mumbling on about the rules-based order and the need to defend core (Western) values and European security interests, thus possibly foreshadowing its involvement in Asia in the event of a China-Taiwan conflagration. However, Western mantra of the rules-based order seemingly applies only to China, but not to US itself when it invaded Iraq in 2003 and Panama in 1989. Ironically codenamed Operation Just Cause, Panama’s invasion was rationalised as a mission to remove the country’s dictator and to extradite him to the US to face drug trafficking and money-laundering charges. As for the invasion of Iraq, it was illegal under international law. The many instances of US fomenting regime change worldwide and its invasions of Iraq and Panama are unfortunately not seen by Washington and the West in the same light – flagrant violations of the international rules-based order. After all, no country has the right to take unilateral action beyond its borders to suit its own narrow ends.
The war of words directed at China by the West is growing ever more strident by the day, and with it the portent of war is looming ominously on the horizon. In Australia, some experts even predicted recently that war with China could break out in three years’ time. If current linguistic tea leaves can be relied upon as reliable omen, some sparks could be flying soon in the global tinderbox.