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Throwing resources to hold a symbolic target is more a Ukrainian thing, with the massive overcommitment at Severodonetsk causing Lysychansk to fall in short order. Overcommitting in Avdiika and Bakhmut should have cause rapid collapses of Chasiv Yar and (pokrovsk?) but the Russians barely stormed 2km out the gate before settling down for a long grind (to nowhere in Bakhmut and now encroaching Pokrovsk near Avdiika. Ukraine overcommitted to stupid defenses in those locations, and Russia arguably overcommitted in throwing bodies there too. A question could of course be 'where should Russia choose to attack', but I am uninterested in expending brain cells in even theoretical advancement of Russian goals.
If we want historical analogies of 'overcommitting offensive resources to a militarily ineffective onjective' it would probably be Stalingrad historically or even Kursk itself, where Germany pushed troops it did not have to secure a target it did not need. Hindsight showed that German commitment to those campaigns was ineffective. We may yet make such a similar assessment of Ukraines own Kursk adventure in future, but right now it is very much Ukraines ball to play.
I was just giving another example of a military decision made explicitly for international optics rather than for strategy or propaganda, etc. Doubtless there are many examples of militarily ineffective overcommitments throughout history.
Hmm. Strictly speaking even Shanghai served a real purpose: the defense, however hopeless, of a major population center. Highlighting its value for foreign audiences would be opportunistic, since foreigners were actually there. I don't doubt the Chinese, like literally every military, would have yelled for every eyeball possible to be on their plight when they are under attack.
If we are talking about attacks launched specifically for foreign support against militarily dubious targets, arguably the Oct 7 Hamas-Palestine attack counts. The now-purged Arab telegrams and social media were publishing footage of the attacks on Israelis far and wide, with calls for the rest of the Arab world or at the very least West Bank and Hezhollah to strike the visibly weak Israelis that were blown away by the Hamas onslaught. Similarly the Six Day War had the Egyptians claim they had successfully bombed the Israeli Air Force into oblivion in order to get the Syrians to attack as well. This may be a case of an attack failing to materialize that nonetheless was constructed for foreign optics, so it may hold to your example.
Thinking about it, I recall tankies at one point claiming that Indonesia attacked East Timor to curry favor with the USA, or Columbia warring against Cartels and FARC for the same reason, claiming that these peopld would not have acted without US demanding it so. Though this may fall kore as 'proxy war' instead of 'notice me senpai'.
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