‘A bloody mess’ with ‘terrible loss of life’: How a China-US conflict over Taiwan could play out

While that decision “makes a ton of sense” from a gameplay perspective, as wargames need to be narrowly-defined in order to be manageable, the end result is that both sides no longer needed to consider whether uses of conventional weapons could prompt an escalation to nuclear conflict, said Becca Wasser, who participated in CSIS’s wargame and also leads the Gaming Lab at the Center for a New American Security.

Despite a stated policy of no first use, China sees nuclear weapons “as a key tool that they could leverage in a potential peer conflict” and has made growing its nuclear arsenal central to its military modernization, she said.

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