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| Plaster cast bust of Thucydides (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Alek Chance
Is conflict exceedingly likely when a rising power approaches parity with an established power?
Since Graham Allison coined the phrase a few years ago, few American discussions of the U.S.-China relationship go by without somebody bringing up the idea of “Thucydides’ Trap.” Even President Xi has adopted the phrase, urging the US and China to work together in avoiding it. What is suggested by this “trap” is the notion that conflict is exceedingly likely when a rising power approaches parity with an established power. In other words, the trap is shorthand for what Western political scientists call power transition theory. Modern expressions of this theory are found most notably in the work of A.F.K. Organski and Jacek Kugler and, separately, Robert Gilpin, who based his argument on a study of Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian war. That this notion is so often used to frame U.S.-China relations raises concerns not only about how we derive and apply lessons from history, but also about the manner in which political science concepts are employed by analysts, commentators, and policymakers.
In testimony to the US Senate Armed Services Committee last month, Allison reported that according to his findings, “In 12 of 16 cases in the past 500 years when a rising power challenged a ruling power, the outcome was war.” He then goes on to cite Thucydides’ assessment that the rise of Athens instilled fear in the dominant Spartans, which pushed them to war. But this account is in fact one of two distinct (though not mutually exclusive) explanations for why power transitions result in conflict. The other, promoted by Organski and Kugler, is more oriented around the rising power’s dissatisfaction with the status-quo and its inability to enjoy the fruits of a system built around the established power. The fact that both of these patterns might be suggested by the Thucydides trap idea gives cause for both the rising power and the established power to fear the other. As Michael Swaine of the Carnegie Endowment recently said, “bad historical analogies” and “faulty theories” on this front have led some parties in both China and the United States to promote more aggressive stances towards the other.
Read the full story at The Diplomat