Ever heard of the Thucydides’ Trap?

In foreign policy discussions, this is a deadly trap first identified by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides. As he explained, “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.”

The term was popularised by American political scientist Graham T. Allison to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon. According to Allison, the past 500 years have seen 16 cases in which a rising power threatened to displace a ruling one. Twelve of these ended in war.

The thesis has been criticised by some historians but it is a useful way of looking at geo-politics. Currently the most worrying danger of the Thucydides Trap is the rise of Chinese power in opposition to that of the United States.


 




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