The Russo-Ukrainian War may be the world’s most urgent crisis. However, the world’s greatest danger is a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan.

Moscow, despite possessing nuclear weapons, is a declining power. Moreover, Washington has no cause for war with Russia. Ukraine has never been a military ally nor even security interest of America, and Moscow has carefully avoided clashing with NATO. No one in the nation’s capital, other than wildly reckless hawks like Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, favors war with Russia, which would almost certainly go nuclear and result in catastrophic destruction. 

In contrast, the People’s Republic of China is a rising global power, a potential peer competitor of the U.S. with rapidly expanding conventional and nuclear forces. And Taiwan has become an increasingly sensitive flashpoint. Although Beijing would prefer to gain control of the island through intimidation, it continues to prepare for war. 

Virtually every American security analyst reflexively insists that the U.S. also must be ready to fight on behalf of Taipei. Indeed, despite Washington’s formal policy of “strategic ambiguity,” former President Joe Biden repeatedly stated that he would defend the island state. His administration increased the U.S. military presence in Taiwan, stationing several hundred American personnel in the country—more than ten times the number reported last year—and cooperating in other ways. Mark Montgomery of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies recently told Congress, “If we’re going to give them billions of dollars in assistance, sell them tens of billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. gear, it makes sense that we’d be over there training and working.” He advocated doubling the U.S. military’s presence.

The political pressure on any president to intervene in a conflict between Beijing and Taipei would be strong, as Jennifer Kavanagh of Defense Priorities and Stephen Wertheim of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace observed in Foreign Affairs. “By staying out, the president could expect to be blamed not only for permitting the economic meltdown that China’s invasion would trigger but also for losing Taiwan after a decades-long battle of wills between Washington and Beijing over the island’s future,” they wrote. 

Moreover, America’s formal armed presence, increased military cooperation, regional force build-up, and continuing military threats would tempt the PRC, if it decided to act against Taipei, to launch a preemptive strike.

Oddly, Taiwan has become an argument for ramping up America’s Ukrainian proxy war. Observed The Daily Telegraph: “Like Ukrainians, [the Taiwanese] live under constant threat from a neighbor that believes it has a right to their territory. They also rely on Western support to keep that threat at bay.” Taipei’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, argued that China would treat a U.S. withdrawal from Ukraine as a victory. He warned that China would think: “OK, since Russia could do that, we can do that as well.”

In fact, Washington’s Ukraine policy of weapons not war may undermine U.S. threats to intervene militarily on behalf of Taipei. The U.S. and its allies refused to fight for Ukraine even though they could deploy substantial ground and air forces against Russia. Intervening on Taiwan’s behalf would be far more difficult. NATO would play no meaningful combat role, and even America’s Asian allies might remain aloof—South Korea very likely, Japan and Australia uncertain. Which would greatly impede U.S. operations.

Trump so far has refused to commit to defend Taiwan. His criticisms of Taipei’s military and trade practices suggest he would be reluctant to jump into the abyss against the PRC. As a result, observed the Telegraph, in Taiwan “a sense of unease has turned into panic.” Predictably, the island’s political and business leaders “are scrambling to appease the U.S. president.” Instead, they should concentrate on developing Taipei’s military capabilities. Its failure to deploy a serious military and the Taiwanese people’s reluctance to defend themselves have been truly shocking. Far more brazenly than the Europeans and Japanese, the island’s residents presume Washington will risk nuclear war on their behalf.

Maintaining sufficient military force and projecting it thousands of miles to contain the PRC within its borders would consume ever more of the U.S. military budget. The consequences of combat between Washington and Beijing would be serious and most likely catastrophic. Even a purely conventional conflict would look more like the Korean War than the Iraq War. And the outcome would be much worse if the U.S. homeland became a battlefield and nuclear weapons magnified the destruction.

The outcome of multiple war games suggests that neither combatant could expect victory, and much would depend on the willingness of America’s allies to intervene. In these games, Washington often loses. Even when Beijing fails to conquer the island, the officially victorious U.S. typically loses a couple carriers, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of personnel. And these exercises often stop before nuclear weapons are used, yet neither side could easily accept defeat and the temptation to escalate would be enormous. Nor would it be enough for America to triumph. If thwarted, China likely would immediately begin preparing for a rematch. The U.S. might have to defend Taiwan continually—and for decades. 

Such a policy deserves a serious debate involving the American people, who would be doing the paying and dying. They felt betrayed by the Iraq War, in which U.S. casualties, though tragic, were modest compared to numbers in past conflicts. In a battle between China and America the economic costs would be far higher, and the number of casualties would be many times greater. Imagine if the U.S. homeland came under attack—nuclear attack. Hawkish policymakers should level with the American people and allow the latter to decide if they support such a policy.

Any map demonstrates that Taiwan is not vital for U.S. security. Washington enjoys military dominance off the PRC’s coast, but that is useful, not existential. Possession of Taiwan would aid the Chinese military, but not fundamentally transform America’s strategic position. Chinese control would discomfit Japan and the Philippines, but little suggests that Beijing desires to or even could stage a Pacific blitzkrieg. U.S. sovereignty, security, prosperity, and liberty all would remain secure irrespective of Taipei’s fate.  

Another claim, repeated by the Telegraph, is that “Taiwan is the crucible for the production of the world’s most advanced semiconductors and, as a result, a full-blown war on the island would threaten a global economic meltdown. This threat of mutually assured economic destruction has provided what analysts have dubbed a ‘silicon shield’—it is in the U.S.’s interests to protect the island.” However, for centuries the West engaged in destructive warfare for mercantile purposes. Taiwan’s chip factories are not worth inaugurating mass slaughter, regional chaos, and nuclear war. Loss of semiconductor production would be costly. A Sino-American conflict would be beyond expensive. 

Indeed, Taiwan’s dominant semiconductor chip industry should be an incentive against American intervention since war, not a Chinese takeover, poses the greatest threat. Even successful defense of Taiwan would likely ruin the industry, whether inadvertently by the winner or intentionally by the loser. As for guaranteeing access to semiconductor chips, Washington already is promoting a mix of increased domestic production and friend-shoring, both of which are far better responses to the threat than war.

Moreover, if China acts militarily, it will do so despite the deleterious economic consequences. Few wars make economic sense. Observed Sean King of Park Strategies: “The whole population of Taiwan is basically about the size of Shanghai. If the mainland goes for Taiwan, it’s not going to be for economics. It’s really going to be about nationalism and strategy.” 

Taiwan is a vibrant democracy, but that also doesn’t justify the U.S. going to a war with China. Argued the Hudson Institute’s Jason Hsu: “During Biden’s administration the discussions were value-based, about allyship, partnership or even democracy.” Yet bringing destruction upon the American republic and sacrificing American lives would be a high price to pay for protecting Taiwanese democracy. Moreover, expected U.S. belligerence would encourage the PRC to preempt Washington with a broader and more savage attack. 

Nevertheless, Americans need not choose between abandoning and defending Taiwan. Washington should pursue a dialogue with Beijing directed at defusing the military situation in the Taiwan Strait. The U.S. should press mutual restraint, with reductions to America’s regional military activity, Washington’s political and military contacts with Taipei, Beijing’s coercive military operations and threats, and Taipei’s independence-oriented diplomatic activity. The goal of such a diplomatic initiative, Kavanagh and Wertheim explained, is that China “would see the threat subside as Washington takes greater care not to publicly challenge the legitimacy of Beijing’s territorial claim and aspiration for eventual unification.”

The U.S. also should organize allied plans for economic and political retaliation in the event of Chinese aggression. The commercial consequences would be especially great for China, which is highly dependent on international trade. A failed attack also would likely end Xi’s rule and perhaps that of the Chinese Communist Party. 

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Kavanagh and Wertheim also suggest a broader strategy to empower Taiwan by promoting the island’s ability to defend itself, which “allows the U.S. to assist from a distance, and keeps the U.S. position in Asia intact regardless of how a cross-strait conflict concludes.” In particular, Washington should sell those weapons, such as anti-ship mines and missiles, most useful to prevent a Chinese attack. More important to America, as well as much more defensible against Beijing, are Japan and other Asian states. The U.S. should encourage them to bolster their militaries, including by increasing intra-Asian cooperation, especially with India. Moreover, threatened states should consider acquiring nuclear weapons, controversial though that would be. So-called extended deterrence, with the U.S. threatening to fight nuclear war against the enemies of its allies, is a terrible game of chicken made much riskier by China’s ongoing nuclear build-up. Far better that allied states control their own defense destinies.

While Taiwan may be the most dangerous spot on earth, Kavanagh and Wertheim urge U.S. officials to downplay the island state’s significance, rejecting “the misguided idea that the United States’ survival and prosperity turn on Taiwan’s political status.” America need not commit potential national suicide on Taipei’s behalf.

Both the U.S. and PRC should determine to avoid war over the island’s status. That would require them to compromise and moderate their ambitions. Control of Taipei does not justify a clash between the two most important and powerful countries on earth, armed with nuclear weapons and capable of destroying each other. Only very rarely is war necessary. And not in this case. Especially by America.