“It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.”
– Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides was a general and historian from Athens. His book “History of the Peloponnesian War” detailed what caused the conflict between the Athenian Delian League and the Spartan Peloponnesian League. While the Peloponnesian League was declared the winner, much of Greece had been destroyed and the power in the region was almost entirely depleted, which left them vulnerable to Persian invasion.
Thucydides has been christened “the father of scientific history.” More than 2,400 years ago, the Athenian historian Thucydides offered a powerful insight: “It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this inspired in Sparta, that made war inevitable.”
The Thucydides’ Trap, is a term popularised by American political scientist Graham T. Allison in 2015 to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon. The term was coined in relation to a potential military conflict between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. The term gained further influence in 2018 as a result of an increase in US-Chinese tensions after US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on almost half of China’s exports to the US, leading to a trade war.
“Thucydides’s Trap refers to the natural, inevitable discombobulation that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, and the resulting structural stress makes a violent clash the rule, not the exception”.
– Graham T Allison’s American political scientist
Graham Allison’s book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? Reviews and analyses sixteen cases in the past five hundred years, wherein a major rising power has threatened to displace a major ruling power. Allison illustrates how the tension between rising and ruling powers has often led to war—while also showing how war was avoided in the rivalries that did not end in violence.
Twelve of these sixteen rivalries ended in war.
Conflict of Interests
Will China become No. 1 and when is it likely to overtake the United States to become, say, the largest economy in the world, or primary engine of global growth, or the biggest market for luxury goods?
Indicators to be watched are:-
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- Size of Economy,
- Manufacturing capability.
- Trading Potential and volume,
- Debt holding.
- Foreign-direct-investment destination.
- Energy consumption.
- Oil imports.
- Carbon emission.
- Steel production.
- Auto market.
- Smartphone market.
- E-commerce market.
- Luxury-goods market.
- Internet users.
- Fastest supercomputer.
- Foreign reserves.
- The primary engine of global growth.
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China has already surpassed the U.S. in some of these indicators. The questions are:-
Will China be able to sustain economic growth rates for in coming decade and beyond?
– It has slowed down a bit but continues to grow.
Are China’s current leaders serious about displacing the U.S. as the predominant power?
-Yes, China’s leaders are serious about displacing the United States as the top power in the world, in the foreseeable future.
Will China follow the path of Japan and Germany, and take its place as a responsible stakeholder in the international order that America has built?
– China does not like to be subordinate to anyone. It would want to be accepted as such.
The U.S. and China have the second and third-largest nuclear arsenals in the world, respectively, and an armed engagement between these two superpowers could quickly and easily escalate to a cataclysmic conflict. Such a conflict would not be in anyone’s best interest.
“War is a choice, not a trap.”
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References and credits
To all the online sites and channels.
- https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/united-states-china-war-thucydides-trap/406756/
- https://www.belfercenter.org/thucydides-trap/case-file
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