Furthermore, he calculates that the odds for a war between China and the United States are much higher than typically assumed. Allison labels as the “Thucydides’s trap” these shifts in the balance of power that lead to decisions for war.Īllison warns that Thucydides’s “real cause” thesis is playing out today in China’s rising power. The second ingredient is the fear that motivates defenders of the existing international order to take a stand against rising threats. The first ingredient is a shift in the balance of power, whereby challengers to the status quo, as they grow in strength, become more ambitious and determined to transform the international system in their favor. In explaining why Athens and Sparta, the two leading states of ancient Greece, came into conflict, Thucydides famously asserted that the “real though unavowed cause” of their rivalry was “the growth of Athenian power, which terrified the Spartans and forced them into war.” Allison highlights that Thucydides’s recipe for the making of a great-power war contains two main ingredients. The teachings of Thucydides provide the starting point and inspiration for Allison to examine the question of whether China and the United States are “destined for war” – the book’s provocative title. In articles appearing in major news outlets and in this newly published book, Allison has hyped Thucydides’s history to the global policymaking community and a wider reading public.
That Thucydides is now so much in vogue is due in no small measure to Graham Allison of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Not bad for a disgraced general who turned to writing history after his fellow Athenians held him responsible for a major military defeat and sent him packing into exile. Presidents, members of Congress, admirals and generals, foreign policy and national security professionals, scholars, and news commentators invoke his name and refer reverently to his history as offering ancient wisdom on politics, ethics, strategy, and war. The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017). Thucydides (Source: shakko/WikiMedia Commons)
0 kommentar(er)
