While the Trump administration's military operations in Iran dominate headlines, a far more consequential conflict zone is receiving less attention. Robert D. Kaplan, writing in Foreign Affairs, has argued that the western Pacific - and specifically the Taiwan Strait - represents a theater where miscalculation could produce consequences that dwarf every U.S. military failure since World War II.
The key difference, Kaplan wrote in his Foreign Affairs analysis covered by "Hvylya", is economic. The forever wars in the Middle East "by and large, have had only a limited effect on financial markets," Kaplan wrote, because those markets have already priced in the region's instability. A war in the western Pacific would be an entirely different story.
The region is home to the world's most vital shipping lanes, supply chains, and economies. A conflict there would not merely produce military casualties but would devastate global commerce and destroy access to critical materials, particularly semiconductors. "To the average American," Kaplan argued, "a Pacific war, if not calibrated perfectly, could dwarf the scale of miscalculation and tragedy in the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam, primarily because of the economic impact."
Yet despite these stakes, planning for such a conflict continues in both Beijing and Washington, which Kaplan said only increases the likelihood that it might one day occur. He dismissed the optimistic scenarios produced by military planners: "Despite all the neat war games about a short, sharp conflict over Taiwan, real wars have a way of turning into all-encompassing realities of their own."
The range of possible outcomes, Kaplan noted, stretches from the collapse of communist rule in China to a military truce born of exhaustion following the crash of world stock markets. North Korea adds another layer of danger - any conflict that threatens to bring down the Kim regime would also unleash domestic chaos in a country with no civil society, potentially triggering calls for yet another international intervention and democracy-building effort.
Kaplan's broader point is that the western Pacific is "of greater consequence to U.S. interests than are Ukraine and the Middle East" - yet the pattern of American decision-making suggests the U.S. is more likely to stumble into what Kaplan calls a middle-sized war there than to prevent one.
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