CHINA AND THE USA ARE HEADING TOWARDS A WAR THEY DO NOT DESIRE

The cause is the "Thucydides Trap": when a rising power threatens to displace an established one, the most likely outcome is war. This phenomenon is as old as history itself. Thucydides, writing about the Peloponnesian War that devastated ancient Greece, said that "the rise of Athens and the fear this instilled in Sparta made war inevitable." Similar conditions have arisen sixteen times over the past five hundred years. Twelve of these ended violently.

In the seventeenth instance, the powerful and rising China is on a collision course with the dominant America. Both Xi Jinping and Donald Trump separately promise to revive the greatness of their respective countries. However, if China does not curb its ambitions or Washington does not agree to share its primacy in the Pacific, then a trade dispute, a cyberattack, or an accident at sea could become the spark that ignites a major war.

In this book, distinguished scholar Graham Allison explains why the "Thucydides Trap" is the best lens through which to study and understand the competition between the USA and China. Allison shows how political skill in the past avoided the "Thucydides Trap" and what painful steps must be taken to avoid a war in the present. Masterfully correlating history with current events, the book does not seek to predict the future but to prevent it.