What specific scenarios and triggers do RAND, Chatham House, and Brookings model for a global great‑power war?
Executive summary
RAND builds detailed, historically grounded scenario sets that imagine wars with China or Russia—including four near‑term cases and systemic conflict if China nears global primacy—intended to stress planners’ assumptions about outcomes and aftermaths [1] [2] [3]. Chatham House uses scenario‑planning and expert roundtables to map shifting geopolitical orders and flashpoints, but the provided material does not include a single, published “global war” scenario from Chatham House comparable to RAND’s analytic products [4] [5]. No Brookings publications or scenario exercises on a global great‑power war were provided in the source set, so any claim about Brookings’ specific modeled triggers would be beyond these sources’ scope (no Brookings source provided).
1. RAND: four near‑term scenarios and systemic war if power tilts toward China
RAND explicitly generated four plausible near‑term scenarios showing how a war with China or Russia could unfold and shape the postwar strategic environment, with the aim of identifying unanticipated consequences even for a purported victor [2] [1]. In a separate RAND study the authors model “systemic” U.S.–China conflict under a counterfactual in which China approaches global primacy, using historical patterns and contemporary trends to sketch both low‑ and high‑intensity pathways and the heavy strain they impose on militaries and partners [3]. RAND’s broader modeling also treats shifts in national power, demographic and economic trajectories, and shocks (including climate and other contingencies) as variables that change the balance of power and thereby alter the likelihood and timing of major‑power war [6]. RAND’s scenario work therefore treats triggers as a combination of long‑term power transition dynamics (e.g., China nearing primacy), acute shocks and resource stresses, and the fog of crisis decisionmaking that can produce inadvertent escalation—lessons RAND draws from historical great‑power conflicts and from analysis of contemporary crises such as Russia’s war in Ukraine [7] [8].
2. RAND’s specific escalation triggers and postwar contingencies
Across RAND products the triggers sketched are both structural and episodic: structural shifts in power cycles that make war more probable, rapid erosion of deterrence in a high‑stakes theater, and specific crisis moments that create incentives for escalation or miscalculation [6] [3]. RAND warns planners to consider “horizontal” or inadvertent escalation—conflicts spreading across theaters or domains—and even deliberate escalation by state actors under stress, drawing on analyses of nuclear signaling and Russia–Ukraine case studies to show how battlefield reversals or perceived strategic losses can change thresholds for extreme measures [8] [1]. The purpose is not prediction but to expand the decision space: RAND’s scenarios are explicitly framed to test assumptions about winners, losers, and the messy geopolitical aftermath that can follow even a “victory” [1] [2].
3. Chatham House: scenario‑planning, convening elites, and mapping flashpoints
Chatham House’s public materials show sustained use of scenario‑planning, roundtables and expert convenings to explore transatlantic relations, NATO risks, and regional flashpoints rather than publishing a single canonical global‑war playbook in the provided set [4] [5]. The institute’s documented work emphasizes assessing end‑states, legal and political ramifications, and plausible geopolitical trajectories through expert dialogue—an approach that surfaces multiple potential triggers (e.g., shifts in alliances, force postures, and policy shifts) but presents them as part of broader geopolitical trend analysis rather than deterministic war scenarios in the RAND sense [4] [5]. Chatham House therefore tends to frame triggers as contingent political and policy choices and structural pressures in the international order, rather than offering a fixed catalog of battlefield triggers in the public material supplied [4] [5].
4. What the sources do not allow: Brookings and limits on certainty
The available reporting contains no Brookings scenario publications on a global great‑power war to cite, so any precise description of Brookings’ modeled scenarios or triggers cannot be supported from these sources (no Brookings source provided). Likewise, RAND and Chatham House explicitly caution that scenario work is exploratory, not predictive: RAND frames its scenarios to challenge planners’ assumptions rather than to forecast a single inevitable pathway [2] [3], and Chatham House relies on convening expert judgment to map multiple plausible futures rather than to publish deterministic trigger lists [4] [5]. Readers should therefore treat these scenario sets as analytic tools shaped by institutional missions—RAND’s focus on defense planning and worst‑case stress‑testing, Chatham House’s emphasis on convening and policy debate—each bringing implicit agendas about whom the analysis is meant to inform [1] [4].