A senior defense analyst has laid out a paradox at the heart of great-power competition: a U.S.-China war over Taiwan could remain a limited conflict, but the very possibility of limitation makes the risk of escalation more dangerous, not less.
Jo Inge Bekkevold, a senior China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, explored the scenario in an analysis published by Foreign Policy. As "Hvylya" reports, Bekkevold acknowledged that a military confrontation between Washington and Beijing might be contained if fighting stayed below the nuclear threshold and remained concentrated in the Western Pacific.
But containment is far from guaranteed. "The very fact that both China and the United States are contemplating the possibility of a limited war over Taiwan is in itself a risk of a greater conflict given the danger of vertical and horizontal escalation," Bekkevold wrote. Vertical escalation - the climb toward nuclear weapons use - remains a live concern despite an ongoing academic debate about whether limited nuclear war is possible. Horizontal escalation - the spread of fighting to new theaters - poses an equally serious threat.
On the horizontal axis, Bekkevold identified two specific pathways. European actors could be pulled into the Pacific conflict through their alliance commitments to the United States. Simultaneously, Russia might exploit America's focus on Asia "as an opportunity to test European and U.S. resolve in Europe," effectively opening a second front that would transform a regional war into something approaching a global one.
The economic dimension adds another layer. Given the deep technological and economic interconnections between modern societies, even a geographically limited war in the Western Pacific would produce "immense effects on countries, economies, and citizens far beyond the geographical center" of the fighting. Bekkevold noted that the consequences of an actual world war, by contrast, "are almost impossible to fathom" - which is precisely why getting the distinction right matters.
Previously: "We Don't Care What Happens Next": Cochrane Lays Out America's New War Doctrine.