[Geo Political Futures] U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan begins a new era of confrontation between the U.S. and China and marks a new stage in the ongoing conflict over Eurasia, this unique landmass where world history takes place and world wars are fought. What distinguishes this episode from previous world wars is that this one is scalable — the existence of thermonuclear weapons greatly raises the stakes of escalation and demands each side to be circumspect before escalating. In a scalable clash, each side tries to force its interests through various domains of contemporary dependencies in a densely globalized world — a world that will be violently split open before our eyes.
Pelosi’s visit accelerates the process of sharp and violent deglobalization — the breaking, for geopolitical reasons, of all financial, trade, information, communication and human connections that resulted from Pax Americana over the past 30 years. It turns out that the great powers do not agree on the principles that define how the world operates and how they cooperate with each other. China, the U.S. and Russia believe the existing global order no longer serves their interests. Only Europe still wants everything to stay the same, naively thinking that the "old" ways will come back. Completely unprepared for the return of geopolitics, Europe is on course to become the subject of the game of the three aforementioned powers — a place of struggle and kinetic wars and not a main actor, with ambitions and strategic initiative.
The Shape of the War to Come
Dangerous times lie ahead. Conflict will be a constant in many domains: trade, technology, finance, raw materials, currency markets, data and internet, and infrastructure. There will be kidnappings and assassinations, information warfare, fighting for oceans and lands, and fighting to control communication nodes, even in outer space. Finally, there will be hot proxy wars, coups, revolutions and government collapses, and probably a direct clash between China and the U.S. in the Western Pacific, or a war in Europe involving some NATO countries and Russia.
The main focus of this global conflict, however, will be the manipulation of strategic flows to influence the opponent’s stability and social contract. Examples include banning the sale to China of Taiwan’s microprocessors necessary in a modern economy and, in response, China’s banning of exports of sand to Taiwan necessary for construction; or bans on capital investments in China and, in response, the expropriation of large U.S. companies with production in China.
In addition, there will be sanctions, blockades, embargoes on trade and raw materials, manipulation of energy transmission systems, attacks on infrastructure and military demonstrations intended to disrupt the enemy’s economy. A good example is the effective sea and air quarantine of Taiwan in the course of China’s sea-air exercises, or the unilateral ban on Russian flights over Lithuania or Poland, which may be broken one day if Moscow wants to contest Europe’s ability to limit where its planes fly.
Kinetic War
In this global struggle, a kinetic war between the U.S. and China in the Western Pacific becomes very likely, possibly sooner than later, given the irreconcilable structural differences of interest between the two powers. For a critical imbalance in the world system has already arisen that will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to correct in the foreseeable future without resorting to force, and such an escalation naturally leads to war. The situation around Taiwan in connection with Pelosi’s visit, and before that Russia’s ultimatum toward Ukraine, is clear proof of this.
Fortunately, the existence of thermonuclear weapons lowers the willingness of each side to enter into an uncontrolled conflict without reflection. It forces each side to be selective about what it seeks to obtain through the threat or use of violence, without stupidly starting a thermonuclear war. This makes the coming world war scalable, and this is what sets it apart from previous world wars. 
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