What Was Thucydides Trap
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Escaping Thucydides’s Trap
The book raised the question of how relations between the US and China will unfold is one of the most consequential of the 21st century. In the past decade, perhaps no thinker has had a greater influence on how this question is understood in both the US and China than eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison, who developed the idea of the Thucydides Trap to warn of the risk of war erupting between a rising power and a ruling power in the power transition process. This book presents a comprehensive collection of Allison’s views and writings on US-China relations from 2017 to 2022, covering a range of topics including the balance of power between the two sides, where the relationship is headed, and lessons from history on how conflict can be avoided. The book is presented in an accessible Q&A format and draws on interviews, articles, and reports, as well as dialogues between Professor Allison and Dr. Huiyao Wang from the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a non-governmental think tank based in Beijing. The book also includes an introduction and afterword by Dr. Huiyao Wang, CCG president and editor of this volume.
Thucydides' Other "Traps"
The notion of a "Thucydides Trap" that will ensnare China and the United States in a 21st century conflict-much as the rising power of Athens alarmed Sparta and made war "inevitable" between the Aegean superpowers of the 5th century BCE-has received global attention since entering the international relations lexicon 6 years ago. Scholars, journalists, bloggers, and politicians in many countries, notably China, have embraced this beguiling metaphor, coined by Harvard political science professor Graham Allison, as a framework for examining the likelihood of a Sino-American war. This case study examines the Thucydides Trap metaphor and the response it has elicited. Hewing closely to what the historian of the Peloponnesian War actually says about the causes and inevitability of war, it argues that, while Thucydides' text does not support Allison's normative assertion about the "inevitable" result of an encounter between "rising" and "ruling" powers, the History of the Peloponnesian War (hereafter, History) does identify elements of leadership and political dynamic that bear directly on whether a clash of interests between two states is resolved through peaceful means or escalates to war. It is precisely because war typically begins with a considered decision by a national command authority to reject other options and mobilize for conflict (and thus always entails an element of choice) that insight from Thucydides' History remains relevant and beneficial for the contemporary strategist, or citizen, concerned in such decisions.Accordingly, this case study concludes that the Thucydides Trap, as conceived and presented by Graham Allison, draws welcome attention both to Thucydides and to the pitfalls of great power competition, but fails as a heuristic device or predictive tool in the analysis of contemporary events. Allison's metaphor offers, at best, a potentially misleading over-simplification of Thucydides' nuanced and problematic account of the origins of the epochal conflict that defined his age. Moreover, it overlooks actual insights from the History that can help political decisionmakers-including, but not limited to, those of the United States and China-either avoid war or, if ignored, pose genuine policy "traps" that can make an avoidable war more likely, and a necessary war more costly.
Thucydides on Choice and Decision Making
Author: Ilias Kouskouvelis
language: en
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Release Date: 2018-11-05
This book uncovers a different perspective on the great classical thinker, who has largely been misread. Through the scrupulous and holistic analysis of The Peloponnesian War – or, as the author suggests, of The War – a different Thucydides emerges. One who understands power and its distribution, but considers as crucial the choices made by people or leaders. One who suggests, according to the book’s interpretation on the outbreak of war and the Sicilian expedition, that the war was a result of decision making and, thus, not inevitable. One with his own view on domestic and international politics, a Thucydidean view; a view certainly containing elements of the modern International Relations paradigms, but clearly linking external behavior with deliberations and choice. A Thucydides, finally, holding a more benign than believed view on human nature, and informs our understanding of human behavior, especially when in a position of power or in war. Professor Kouskouvelis’ curiosity evolved from his school days when he realized that there was much more to Thucydides than simply an account of The War. His scholarship in Ancient Greek and a lifetime of studying Thucydides and international relations has led him to reappraise Thucydides, provide to his views their true and unobserved dimension, and assign to him his appropriate position; that of a shrewd observer of life and politics, and a thinker on how people decide. This book will be of interest to anyone trying to understand how the major decisions of statecraft are shaped by both context and choice. The text elucidates for us how Thucydides’ schemata on decision making and the flawed decisions that reoccur are rooted in our human foibles and our entrapment by interest, fear, and honor, to name just a few. It will be of significant interest to political thinkers, academics, military, decision makers, and the wider public who thirst for classical thinking about security, strategy and decision making.