We here at The Infographics Show routinely cover the most pressing scientific questions
of our age, such as how would one poop if you lived at the bottom of the Mariana Trench,
or how could we defend the earth from alien attack?
Yet while our teams of world class researchers, historians, and philosophers are often busy
finding new exciting scientific challenges to tackle, what we really love is answering
questions directly from you, our viewers!
Today we're going to be answering a very unique question asked by Kevin, who emailed us asking
what would happen if one world leader punched another world leader?
Well today we're answering that question, and diving deep into modern geopolitics and
ancient history itself in our quest to find out what would happen if world leaders got
punch-happy with each other.
Today most politicians have little if any actual military experience, and are content
to sit behind a desk and commit millions of young men and women to war.
In the United States for example, out of the last six American presidents, only George
H.W. Bush actually served in a war zone, and was even shot down as a navy pilot.
Ronald Reagan only served in the reserves, and George W. Bush served stateside and received
an early discharge.
President Barack Obama never served in the military and was too young to have seen the
mandatory Vietnam draft, and President Donald Trump avoided being drafted by getting a medical
deferment for bone spurs.
Of the last six men to sit behind the Resolute Desk and helm the most powerful military in
earth's history, only one of them had actually contributed in any significant way to that
same military that they could, and would, now send into combat.
Yet it wasn't always this way, and throughout history leaders have traditionally arisen
through military conquest.
While this has rarely ever really worked out for us as a species, as these leaders tended
to be dictators who often led their nations to ruin, there is something to be said that
often during these times, international conflicts could be settled mano a mano.
In Europe during the Middle Ages dueling was all the rage, and often conflicts between
nations could be settled by the two rulers having a good old fashioned fight to the death.
England's Henry V once challenged France's Charles VI to a duel in order to settle a
national dispute between the two nations.
Rather than commit vast sums of treasure and see thousands of men die on a battlefield,
a duel would declare a winner and the loser would simply be out one king.
For the average soldier this is what we would call a 'win-win'.
Yet Charles VI was famously insane, and would go on benders for months at a time where he
would be convinced that he was made of glass- needless to say, Charles was definitely not
up to a fight, especially when he believed that he could shatter into a million pieces
at the slightest touch.
Knowing that Charles VI wouldn't accept the duel, Henry V then challenged the king's eldest
son, Guienne, but Guienne was at the time nothing more than a chubby teenager who didn't
know the sharp end of a sword from the hilt.
A duel never occurred, and as a result England invaded France and thousands of men died on
both sides.
For Americans, who have faced conflicts around the world for the last seven decades, the
practice of rulers dueling would sure seem appealing.
Yet sadly, the practice is completely out of style, and duels between world leaders
haven't occurred in hundreds of years.
But what would happen if one world leader did punch another?
Well, there hasn't been a single instance of this happening in modern times, so sadly
we don't have a specific event we can reference, but we can see why the attack would not go
well for the attacker thanks to an incident that happened during one of President Trump's
first visits to China early in his presidency.
During this visit Trump was invited to join Chinese President Xi Jinping on a private
walk.
Trump hurried through a set of double doors to join the Chinese president, and yet when
his military attache carrying the nuclear football attempted to join the President,
he was denied entry by a Chinese presidential guard- the equivalent of the American secret
service.
It is longstanding policy that the nuclear football remain within the direct proximity
of the American president anytime he is outside of the White House, just in case the President
must immediately respond to a nuclear attack on the United States.
The Chinese secret service apparently did not know this though, and when the attache
was denied entry, then Chief of Staff and former Marine Corps General John F. Kelly
shoved the Chinese guard aside and pushed the military attache through the doors with
him.
At that point a Chinese guard physically grabbed at John Kelly, only to be immediately overpowered
and floored by a US secret service agent.
The entire incident was a misunderstanding of protocol, and the head of the Chinese secret
service apologized for the incident, and yet it shows what would happen if today, one world
leader tried to punch another.
The job of not just the US, but of any nation's, secret service is to protect their leader
at all costs, and as the incident in China showed, these men and women are willing to
do their job even if it risks causing an international incident.
So what if in the previous example the confrontation had not been between Chief of Staff John Kelly
and a Chinese secret service agent?
Picture the following: President Trump and President Xi Jinping are strolling through
a beautiful garden, calmly discussing geopolitical concerns that each nation has.
For Trump, China's continued support of North Korea is unacceptable, and Xi Jinping wishes
the US Navy to stay out of the South China Sea.
As the two world leaders butt heads, the situation gets tense, and then quickly gets heated.
Xi Jinping makes fun of Trump's big red button, Trump in turn reminds Xi Jinping that he looks
like Winnie the Pooh.
This greatly angers Xi Jinping, mostly because it's true and Xi Jinping is so sensitive to
the comparison that he actually ordered the Hollywood film Christopher Robin be banned
from Chinese cinemas in 2018.
By the way, that’s something we can say outside of China, but would be censored out
inside China.
Xi Jinping has had enough, and clocks the American president square in the jaw.
Before anyone can do anything, two geriatric world leaders are at each other's throats.
Yet any fight between world leaders would last very, very short- and it's not because
aside from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Canada's Justin Trudeau, they are almost
all grossly out of shape.
It's because the moment Chinese President Xi Jinping lands a punch to President Trump's
jaw, the American secret service would spring into action.
So what would happen?
Well, imagine the following in slow motion.
The secret service's job is to protect the American president at all costs, and right
now there are two threats to the president- the first is the fact that he's getting clobbered
by an elderly world leader, and the second threat is that world leader's own secret service
agents.
In moments, one agent would move to defend the American president from his attacker,
while the rest would immediately disarm or neutralize the Chinese secret service agents.
The American secret service takes absolutely no risks with the President's life, and therefore
there would be no discussion about it, or trying to physically detain the Chinese guards-
it would be an immediate shoot-to-kill situation.
The only problem is that of course, the Chinese secret service would be thinking the exact
same thing as their American counterparts, and no matter who threw the first punch, they
would also react in a flash in the exact same manner as the US agents.
What would happen if two world leaders got into a fist fight?
A lot of dead secret service agents on both sides, and then later, an apology between
the two leaders.
After all, you may be mad enough to sucker punch someone in the face in a heated argument,
but you would never be angry enough at that person to go back home and start a war over
it.
At least not if you are in charge of a modern nation.
If after their fist fight, president Trump decided to fly back to Washington and launch
a war against China, he'd have to gain congressional approval to do so first.
Now, under current guidelines in the American government, the President is allowed to deploy
combat troops for up to sixty days before getting congressional approval- yet this is
meant to be for small scale actions such as responding to terrorist attacks or perhaps
neutralizing a smaller, much weaker power that requires only a fraction of the US military's
total force.
Technically speaking, the President is not allowed to wield the full might of the US
military during these sixty days, but that's strictly only technically speaking- and whether
or not President Trump could return home and order the US military into combat against
China is a bit of a gray area.
What is sure though is that doing so would be political suicide, as congress would be
forced to impeach a president who launched a major war without their support.
Instead, Trump would have to get Congress on his side to vote on a formal declaration
of war, and there's little chance that the majority of the American congress would agree
to war over a fist fight.
Even Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is in command of an authoritarian Chinese government,
would have trouble declaring war on the US over his brief fist fight.
That's because though overwhelming power rests with Xi Jinping himself, the National People's
Congress would never tolerate a war declared over such petty reasoning.
For President Xi, this too would be political suicide- no matter how much he has consolidated
power over even the NPC through political strongarming, imprisonment of enemies, and
blackmail.
But what if the incident took place between nations not as powerful as the US and China.
Well, to put it mildly, if the American or Chinese presidents ever got into a tussle
with world leaders from smaller nations, well, it would be prudent for the smaller nation
to remember that both the Chinese and American presidents are punching with the full force
of their respective militaries behind them.
Russia's Vladimir Putin doesn't need that power though, as he's a champion martial artist
that could probably kick the ass of any current world leader- except maybe Justin Trudeau.
Truthfully though, retaliation would be unnecessary, as the game of global diplomacy is such a
sensitive one that any diplomatic faux pas- and punching someone in the face is pretty
much the first thing they teach you not to do in diplomat school- could have dire consequences.
Nations may not seek out direct military retaliation, but they can, and have often in the past,
retaliated in much subtler ways- specially economic.
For instance, just recently China announced sanctions on many US companies thanks to America's
continued support of Taiwan.
On a wider scale, these retaliatory measures can be far more devastating than a world leader
getting cold-cocked in the jaw.
If you want to see political tussles though then you typically have to look no further
than your own nation's internal politicians.
Here in the US, of the Senate's first twenty rules, ten are about how to properly respect
your fellow senators, with rules such as “No one is to disturb another in his speech by
hissing, coughing, spitting, speaking, or whispering to another; nor to stand up or
interrupt him; nor to pass between the Speaker and the speaking member; nor to go across
the chamber, or to walk up and down it, or to take books or papers from the clerk's table,
or write there.”
That sounds like rules straight out of grade school, and something that should be common
sense to the distinguished gentlemen of the American senate.
And yet there's a reason for these rules, because even though there have not been any
recent senatorial fist fights, all-out brawls in the American senate were practically part
of the legislative process.
On February 22, 1902, one senator accused another of telling “a willful, malicious,
and deliberate lie”, which caused the accused senator to punch his accuser in the jaw.
A full-fledged fist fight ensued, with the rest of the senate jumping in trying to separate
the two and inevitably getting into their own fist fights.
Decades later in 1964 South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond got into a wrestling match
with Texas senator Ralph Yarborough.
Once even, an American senator attacked an American citizen inside his own office, when
in April 2nd, 1917 a minor league player protesting a declaration of war on Germany was punched
in the face by 67 year old Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.
Duels between world leaders are sadly a thing of the past, and there's no soldier alive
today who wouldn't prefer if the war he or she was about to be sent to was settled by
the men or women sending him to it, fighting it out amongst themselves.
Perhaps if world leaders were forced to work out their conflicts themselves, then the world
at large would be a much more peaceful place.
Which world leaders would you like to see go at it?
Got any more questions for us to answer?
Let us know in the comments or email us!
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