Maybe not a thousand ships, but Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has put China on war footing against not only Taiwan, but Japan, South Korea and the U.S.

(Originally published Aug. 8 in “What in the World“) U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi skipped out of Taiwan after an overnight visit that left Taiwan in greater peril than any time in the past 20 years. Her visit, and China’s response, have banished to the farthest reaches of diplomatic imagination any prospect for an eventual, peaceful reunification of Taiwan with China. Beijing, and certainly Taiwan, may now be convinced that the only way to realize “one China” is through force of arms. Perhaps even worse, China has disengaged with the U.S. on other issues of mutual interest, particularly climate change.

Some officials fear four days of Chinese naval exercises and missile barrages around the island, which featured a massive incursion by Chinese jets and warships onto Taiwan’s side of the Taiwan Strait, presage a naval blockade that would include preemptive missile strikes on U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea. While China still lacks the capability to overrun Taiwan, military analysts say the exercises have revealed an improved capacity to coordinate a devastating siege.

Indeed, China’s exercises escalated over the weekend, with the People’s Liberation Army announcing an additional month of maneuvers in the waters off South Korea. While some have suggested Beijing has been obliged to ramp up its response to Pelosi’s visit to mollify China’s nationalist trolls, Taiwan officials have suggested it is only unveiling a long-planned strategy in search of a pretext. So, thanks Nancy.

The intensity and duration of China’s “exercises” are starting to look a lot like the real thing. Recall that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was preceded by military “exercises” in Belarus that were used to help disguise (though not very successfully, in Russia’s case) its preparations for invasion. China has stopped answering calls from the Pentagon, which raises the risk of an altercation as China’s military blusters around Taiwan while the USS Ronald Regan carrier group steams around to the east in the Philippine Sea.

If there is an incident, things could spiral out of control very quickly. The action in Ukraine and Taiwan have prompted U.S. politicians to interpret them as a challenge to the United States and call for a stepped-up American response. In a reprisal of Cold War logic, any attempt to de-escalate and seek dialogue will be condemned as being “soft” on the China-Russia axis, and vice versa, leading to a vicious cycle of escalation by both sides at the slightest provocation.

As China practiced its conquest of Taiwan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was just 800 kilometers south in Manila, rekindling the U.S.-Philippine alliance Saturday with the country’s newly elected President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the late dictator and U.S. ally. Then on Sunday, Blinken did his part for climate change by flying to South Africa to try offsetting Russian and Chinese influence in Africa.

Back in Europe, military strategists worry that Russia may next be eyeing the Suwalki gap—the narrow border between Lithuania and Poland that separates its Baltic enclave Kaliningrad from ally Belarus.