Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?

"The book is about assessing the chance of the United States going to war with China in the future. Thucydides’ trap was written about by the greek historian Thucydides during the Peloponnesian War. The argument is that when you’ve got a ‘hegemon’, a country that has power over an area or the world, and there is a rising power that grows, strengthens and threatens to take over the hegemon, that generally leads to war. Twelve out of sixteen times in history, that has happened. Allison doesn’t go into as much depth on what would be the theoretical model behind this, but the idea is that two powers are competing for status. As the ‘top dog’, if you see someone else competing for your spot, you’re in a position to kill them first—and if you don’t, you’re at risk of getting killed once they’ve caught up with you. Any quantitative argument about the chances of war in the 21st century will be very subjective—I certainly wouldn’t want to say that it’s 75% just because of this twelve-out-of-sixteen idea. Allison doesn’t make that claim himself, but what he makes clear is that war is the normal state for humanity. The last 70 years are a fairly unusual state. We don’t really know why they’ve been so unusual. It’s possible that it’s a result of contingent facts about technology, namely nuclear weapons. This could all change in the 21st century. This, combined with the incredible economic progress of China, means that we should take very seriously the possibility of war, even though it seems so weird and unprecedented for people of my generation, who grew up in a period of almost complete peace."