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

Abstract

According to him, with huge and painful adjustments in attitudes and actions on the part of challenger and challenged alike, the major ruling powers can manage relations with rivals, even those that threaten to overtake them, without triggering a war. According to him, with huge and painful adjustments in attitudes and actions on the part of challenger and challenged alike, the major ruling powers can manage relations with rivals, even those that threaten to overtake them, without triggering a war. [...]Allison (2017) resurrects Samuel Huntington's classical thesis of Clash of Civilizations4. According to him, these cases offer twelve clues for US leaders seeking to make the rise of China a case of no war: 01. higher authorities can help resolve rivalry without war; 02. states can be embedded in larger economic, political and security institutions that constrain historically 'normal' behaviors; 03. wily statesmen make a virtue of necessity - and distinguish needs and wants; 04. timing is crucial; 05. cultural commonalities can help prevent conflict; 06. there is nothing new under the sun- except nuclear weapons; 07. 'mutual assured destruction' really does make all-out war madness; 08. hot war between nuclear superpowers is thus no longer a justifiable option; 09. leaders of nuclear superpowers must nonetheless be prepared to risk a war they cannot win; 10. thick economic interdependence raises the cost - and thus lowers the likelihood p - of war; 11. alliances can be a fatal attraction; 12. domestic performance is decisive. [...]he stresses the importance of strategy and making domestic challenges central.