Any U.S.-China War Over Taiwan Risks Nuclear Escalation, Landmark IISS Study Warns

A war between the United States and China over Taiwan would carry a real risk of nuclear escalation, with both militaries likely to launch sweeping strikes against each other's command-and-control networks, according to a major new assessment from the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The London-based research center, one of the world's most influential defense think tanks, warned in its 156-page report that the world is on the cusp of a new nuclear arms race "with the Asia-Pacific at its core." The document examines how military doctrines are evolving across the region and models how a clash over Taiwan might unfold — and concludes that the guardrails meant to keep such a conflict from spiraling are dangerously thin.

"Conflict with China would risk escalation, potentially to a nuclear level, given the strategic importance of Taiwan to Beijing," the report says. It adds that "there is currently little public evidence to suggest that both militaries understand the necessary guard rails to prevent, or rules of engagement that would restrict, both sides potentially targeting each other's key command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance nodes." Strikes against those so-called C4ISR systems are especially destabilizing because they can blind an adversary's leadership and create pressure to escalate before capabilities are lost.

According to the assessment, the two powers would enter a Taiwan conflict with sharply different objectives. China would seek to keep the United States and its allies at bay long enough to force a resolution, while Washington would aim to bolster Taiwan's resilience and deny Beijing a quick victory. Yet both would be expected to mount vast operations spanning the air, sea, cyber and space domains — raising the chance of miscalculation as each side races to disable the other's networks.

The report lands days before the IISS convenes its annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, running May 29 to 31, where defense ministers and military chiefs from across the Indo-Pacific gather each year. Analysts expect Taiwan to dominate the agenda, alongside the ongoing conflict involving Iran and persistent questions about the durability of U.S. security commitments in the region.

The warning arrives against the backdrop of a rapid expansion of China's nuclear forces. Western estimates have for several years pointed to Beijing building hundreds of new missile silos and steadily enlarging an arsenal that has historically been far smaller than those of the United States and Russia. Pairing that growth with conventional forces capable of striking command networks, the IISS argues, erodes the older assumptions that kept nuclear and conventional war neatly separated. The findings add to a growing body of expert warnings that the long-feared confrontation over Taiwan, far from being a contained regional dispute, could draw the world's two largest economies — and two of its leading nuclear powers — into the most dangerous standoff since the Cold War.