The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party recently became the latest in a long list of groups to conduct a wargame examining a potential U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan.
Yet the most important question about such a conflict is the one none of these organizations ever ask: What is the vital national interest of America that would justify fighting such a war?
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Answering that question is of paramount importance. The cost to our country of fighting a war with China, regardless of the reasons, will range somewhere between extraordinarily harmful and catastrophic. The American people and the U.S. Congress must be clear-eyed about this fact: There is no scenario in which the U.S. goes to war with China over Taiwan that does not bring severe military and financial harm with it.
A Taiwan War Would Be Historically Bad
What is at stake in Taiwan for America that is worth paying such a high cost? And after paying it, would our country be stronger or weaker?
Most of American punditry is focused on the genuinely serious harm that would be done to the peopl …