FPI / June 17, 2025

[Editor’s Note: The following will appear in the new edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com on June 18.]

Geostrategy-Direct, June 18, 2025

By Richard Fisher

Israel’s “Rising Lion” strike campaign that began on the night of June 12, bombing hundreds of nuclear related and military targets in Iran, and then special operations that decapitated the leadership of the most militant Iranian Revolutionary Guards, was not just a massive defeat for Iran’s theocratic dictatorship, it was also a stunning defeat for China’s insidious proxy warfare strategy.

In March 2025 the Israeli Defense Force revealed that it had modified its new F-35I 5th generation fighters to carry heavy external loads, that likely saw extensive use during strikes against Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure. / Israel Defense Force

The essence of China’s proxy strategy is to envelop harsh dictatorships with all-around dependencies on Chinese support, and to then push them into fighting “mutual enemies” in which they bear most of the risk, meaning they can fight and die, but China will not fight and die to save them.

Covertly Developing Three Nuclear States

China’s strategy so far has included the buildup of three nuclear weapon states against mutual enemies:

• Nuclear Pakistan against India;
• Nuclear North Korea against South Korea, Japan and the United States;
• And then a nuclear Iran against Israel and the United States.

China’s military/nuclear investment in Pakistan has repeatedly proven its worth, with Pakistan fighting wars with India that reinforce Chinese containment, by forcing Delhi to devote as much resources to preparing for war with Pakistan as it does with China, neutralizing any Indian movement toward a full military alliance with the United States and the West.

Neutralizing India gives China increasing power from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, and increases in power in countries surrounding India, to include Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Iran.

Nurturing a Hostage Culture in South Korea

Likewise, North Korea’s nuclear missile threat and constant threat of invasion has added more layers to the hostage culture in South Korea that feeds a neutralist/pro-Left, anti-American force in their politics, as in Seoul and Tokyo it challenges the credibility of their military alliances with Washington.

Furthermore, North Korea’s rapidly expanding nuclear forces are a reserve and rogue blackmail/attack threat against the U.S. that Washington fails to credit to China’s subterfuge, meaning it is becoming a cost-free first attack option for China to divert U.S. military resources away from opposing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

With Iran, China has used great subterfuge to hide its conventional and nuclear military support, while it has been more open about its economic and political embrace of Iran’s harsh Muslim theocracy; a March 2021 25-year strategic cooperation pact in energy and infrastructure gives Iran the ability to flout U.S. and international sanctions. ….

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  Geostrategy-Direct: ‘Rising Lion’ destroyed key hub of China’s proxy strategic warfare strategy, WorldTribune.com

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