Famous Harvard
University historian Professor Graham Allison introduced the idea of Thucydides
Trap to explain the current conflict between America and China. Thucydides is
considered to be one of the first, if not the first, historian. In his
explanation of war between Sparta and Athens he wrote “What made war inevitable
was the growth of Athenian Power and the fear which this caused in Sparta”. In
other words war was started by the then resident power, Sparta, out of fear of
a rising power Athens, because Spartans were afraid that Athenians would take
over as the dominant power. In current scenario you can replace Sparta with
America and Athens with China. Professor Graham presents about a dozen
historical cases to support his theory of Thucydides Trap. There are other
scholars, like Arthur Waldron who refute his theory. But the fact of the matter
is that there is an economic war going on between US and China which might lead
to actual war. Surely both America and China are fully aware of Thucydides Trap.
So what is going on?
