Here’s the latest on Thucydides’s Trap as it relates to current geopolitics.
If you’d like, I can pull specific recent articles or summarize a few think-tank briefs from 2024–2026 and provide a quick reading list with key takeaways.
Illustration: A simple frame to think about it is a two-axis model: relative power shift (rising vs. ruling) on one axis, and the willingness of leaders to make risky bets on the other. High tension with low restraint increases the probability of miscalculation; high restraint and clear crisis management reduce it.
Would you like me to fetch the latest three articles or policy briefs from reputable sources and summarize their positions?
Back from a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Harvard Professor Graham Allison, PhD '75, highlighted the need for a new "strategic concept" that allows the US and China to compete and cooperate simultaneously.
gsas.harvard.edu3 Thucydides’ Other “Traps” has gradually expanded the scale and permanence of its offshore presence. In December 2013, China began extensive dredging and land reclamation efforts in support of its claims to three island groups in the South China Sea—the Spratly Islands, the Paracel/Xisha Islands, and the … 4 Misenheimer of conduct designed to avoid clashes at sea. The negotiations, which will not address conflicting claims of maritime sovereignty, are set to resume in early 2018. While China...
ndupress.ndu.edu“It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” When Athenian General-turned-historian Thuc...
ondisc.nd.eduThe defining question about global order for this generation is whether China and the United States can escape Thucydides’s Trap. The Greek historian’s metaphor reminds us of the attendant dangers when a rising power rivals a ruling power—as Athens challenged Sparta in ancient Greece, or as Germany did Britain a century ago. Most such contests have ended badly, often for both nations, a team of mine at the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has concluded after...
www.belfercenter.org3 Thucydides’ Other “Traps” has gradually expanded the scale and permanence of its offshore presence. In December 2013, China began extensive dredging and land reclamation efforts in support of its claims to three island groups in the South China Sea—the Spratly Islands, the Paracel/Xisha Islands, and the … continue to reclaim land in the Paracels, including recent work at Tree Island and North Island.9 Some perceived that the interaction of U.S. and Chinese naval assets in the disputed...
www.govinfo.govThe 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
inss.ndu.eduThucydides's Trap is the dangerous dynamic that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, explains Harvard's Graham Allison. So is war between China and the United States inevitable? No, says Allison, but both nations will have to make "painful adaptations and adjustments" to avoid it, starting with U.S. policy adjustments regarding the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula.
www.carnegiecouncil.org