a Chinese brinkmanship strategy would not be very credible, as it would almost certainly end in a bluff. A series of tailored nuclear strikes against select US targets—sharp knife thrusts—would be one thing, but actually resorting to large-scale nuclear use against the United States would be another. Following through on such a course to its end would be genuinely crazy, since China would then lose everything in a major nuclear war over Taiwan—a highly valued but still decidedly partial interest. This madman approach might work if the stakes were low for the United States, but as we have seen,
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