I don't why you're asking me that.
I don't know how likely it is, but my point is that your dismissive attitude towards a think tank's position on US Nuclear Policy was entirely unwarranted. Think tanks have an input on policy, that's why they exist, and some of them are extremely influential. What's even more important, is that there are many people in the political-military establishment itself who think that way too.
That said, here is my assessment.
United States is unlikely to resort to nuclear weapons while it has a very powerful array of conventional options. However, in the event that United States suffers a serious, perhaps even devastating military defeat which renders it conventional options ineffective, it may very well resort to using nuclear weapons.
Human behavior is unpredictable, and I would not count on individual policy makers holding their cool no matter what. In fact, if United States loses tends of thousands of personnel, multiple ships, dozens of aircraft in a failed attempt to preserve hegemony in WESTPAC, I hypothesize that there is a very significant chance that United States may use and escalate to nuclear weapons in an attempt to even the odds. Especially because United States will likely have an escalation advantage in a nuclear exchange due to a larger arsenal and greater strategic depth.
What you are saying is fundamentally different from a
policy of using nuclear weapon to protect Taiwan. This is because the purpose of such a policy, if it were implemented, would be to deter China from invading. The goal would not be to actually use the nukes, but to threaten China and modify China's behavior. In order for this to work, however, China would have to be persuaded into believing that the US will follow through with the threat of using nukes, hence the need for
credibility. This is why
if the US do have this policy, it makes every sense for it to announce it frequently and publicly as a matter of doctrine to enhance that credibility. In the words of Dr. Strangelove: "The whole point of a nuclear umbrella over Taiwan would be lost if you keep it a secret."
Because of this, the very fact that the US is
not announcing it publicly means that it does not have this policy. Indeed, the very fact that someone from a think tank is
advocating this policy shows that this is not a current policy. And while think tanks are influential in general, this does not mean each and every policy proposal from a think tank is automatically meaningful, especially one that is as outdated as 2017.
As for the potential for nuclear escalation in a conventional war, that is well known and uncontroversial. China is already preparing by increasing its capabilities.
