The (non-kinetic) war has already started

Strategic debate in Washington often focuses on the possibility of a future kinetic war over Taiwan, yet Midshipman Second Class Alejandro D. Tilley argues in a paper at the U.S. Naval Institute that the United States and China are already engaged in an ongoing multidimensional conflict.

After defining the conflict, the paper introduces a series of game theory models. These models, based on the rationalist bargaining framework, use backward induction to explain how states make decisions about kinetic and non-kinetic confrontation at different stages of great-power competition.

Four cases are examined: Chinese cyber operations against U.S. civilian infrastructure, cyber conflict targeting military networks, proxy warfare illustrated by the Russia–Ukraine war and a Taiwan invasion contingency. Taken together, these models suggest that China’s strategy reflects a non-myopic approach that accumulates advantages in non-kinetic and proxy domains to shape the strategic and bargaining environment that could possibly thwart a possible conflict over Taiwan. 

Read more at U.S. Naval Institute