Absolutely inevitable. The US Has two doctrines forcing it to War: First the Thucydides Trap itself. Second is the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Neither of those doctri

Absolutely inevitable. The US Has two doctrines forcing it to War: First the Thucydides Trap itself. Second is the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Neither of those doctrines will allow any other entity, be they Allies like Europe, or adversaries like China to overtake the US to become the new 'Top Dog'. Unfortunately for the US, the US is in relative decline and China is in relative growth. Arithmetically, China must overtake the US sooner or later. I estimate this as occurring around 2025. The US has only military conflict to prevent that happening. (Economically, the US is in big trouble.) But to ensure victory, the US would have to initiate that war about 5 years prior to the crossover. Again, unfortunately for the US, that war-initiation point was at least a year and a half ago. The likelihood of victory in the war is now a lot less that it would have been back in 2020. China does not want or need a war. A war would only slow it down and delay the crossover point from 2025 to maybe 2028 or later. Consequently, they will 'turn the other cheek' whenever they can until after the crossover point unless they really, really have to go to war. NOTE: Taiwan is a red herring. China vs Taiwan would be like the US vs the Confederacy. The US only went to war against the Confederacy when the Confederacy declared independence. Same thing goes for China. After the US Civil War, rebuilding was very expensive. China wants to avoid having to rebuild Taiwan unless it has no alternative. There are lots of expensive assets on Taiwan that China wants to keep, not destroy.