Thucydides, US-China Relations, and Escaping the Inevitable War
By Darrell Lee
The relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China is the defining geopolitical dynamic of the 21st century. It is a rivalry fraught with tension, marked by economic friction, technological competition, military posturing, and ideological divergence. Across the globe, policymakers, analysts, and citizens watch with apprehension, sensing the potential for miscalculation and conflict between the established superpower and the growing challenger. This anxiety finds a similarity across millennia in the words of the ancient Greek historian Thucydides. Chronicling the Peloponnesian War that tore apart the Hellenic world, Thucydides offered a timeless diagnosis: "It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable." This observation forms the basis of what modern scholars, notably Graham Allison, have termed the "Thucydides Trap", the dangerous structural stress that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling one, usually leading to large-scale conflict. While this provides a historical reference to analyze the escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing, history is not destiny. The Thucydides Trap highlights documented tendencies driven by fear, honor, and interest, but does not mandate an inescapable outcome. Examining the specific dynamics Thucydides identified, applying them to the US-China relationship, and assessing historical instances where similar power transitions occurred without war reveals that while the path to peace is narrow, skilled statecraft can navigate away from the war.
Writing over 2,400 years ago, Thucydides sought to understand the underlying causes of the decades-long conflict between Athens and Sparta. He moved beyond simple explanations of blame and identified structural forces at play. Athens, a democratic, maritime, and commercial power, rapidly expanded its influence and capabilities. Sparta, the established power, watched alarmingly. Thucydides argued that the war's true catalyst lay in this shifting power dynamic and the psychological and material consequences it caused. He pinpointed three motivations driving state behavior in such circumstances:
Fear (Deos): Sparta's fear of Athens' power, growing navy, expanding empire, and ideology created an environment where preventative action seemed increasingly necessary to maintain its security and position. The established power fears losing its dominance, security guarantees, and accustomed place in the international order. This fear can lead to policies to contain the rising power, form counter-alliances, or even launch preemptive strikes.
Honor (Timē): Both powers, driven by status, prestige, and self-perception considerations. Athens, confident in its cultural and political achievements, felt entitled to a greater role and resented Spartan attempts to constrain it. Fiercely proud of its military reputation and leadership role, Sparta felt compelled to defend its honor and credibility domestically and among its allies. Challenges to a state's status or core identity can provoke, sometimes irrational, reactions aimed at preserving face and asserting dominance.
Interest (Ōphelia): Tangible conflicts over resources, territory, trade routes, alliances, and spheres of influence provided the immediate flashpoints for conflict. Disputes over allied city-states like Corcyra and Potidaea, competition for resources, and clashes over economic access fueled the rivalry and provided concrete justifications for hostility. These material interests often mesh with fear and honor, creating a potent cocktail of competitive drivers.
Thucydides' genius lay in recognizing that these structural pressures, the fear instilled by shifting power balances, the defense of national honor, and the clash of material interests, created a dynamic where conflict, while not desired by all parties initially, became increasingly likely, possessing its own tragic momentum.
The parallels between the Athens-Sparta dynamic and the current US-China relationship are striking and widely discussed. The United States, the dominant global power since the end of the Cold War, is challenged by the rapid economic growth, military modernization, and expanding global influence of the People's Republic of China. Applying Thucydides' doctrine highlights the tensions:
Fear in Washington and Beijing: American fear manifests in concerns about China's military buildup (particularly its naval expansion and advanced missile capabilities), its aggressive actions in the South China Sea, its cyber intrusions and intellectual property theft, its Belt and Road Initiative aimed at building global infrastructure and influence, its authoritarian political model as a challenge to democratic norms, and its potential to displace the US as the world's leading economy and technological power. Conversely, China harbors fears of US containment, perceiving American alliances in the Indo-Pacific, support for Taiwan, criticism of its human rights record, and promotion of democracy as efforts to encircle it, undermine the Communist Party's rule, and prevent its rightful rise. This mutual fear fuels arms races, deepens suspicion, and makes cooperative initiatives difficult.
Honor and National Identity: The US defines its global role by promoting democracy, human rights, and a rules-based international order, viewing itself as an "indispensable nation." Challenges to this order are direct affronts. Meanwhile, China emphasizes its "national rejuvenation" after a "century of humiliation," demanding respect for its sovereignty, unique development path, and growing global stature. It resists Western disdain or interference in its internal affairs. Clashes over Taiwan, human rights, or historical narratives often become entangled with national honor and identity for both sides, making compromise politically difficult.
Clashing Interests: The status of Taiwan remains the most dangerous, involving interests and non-negotiable principles for both sides. Disputes over freedom of navigation and territorial claims in the South China Sea pit US naval power against China's expanding presence. Economic competition involves trade imbalances, disputes over market access, subsidies, and rivalry for dominance in technologies like semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology. Competition for influence among Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific nations involves competing infrastructure projects, diplomatic initiatives, and security partnerships.
The combination of these factors creates a volatile environment. Fear breeds mistrust, conflicts over honor inflame nationalist sentiments, and competing interests trigger escalation. The Thucydides Trap seems ominously relevant.
Despite the grim historical pattern highlighted by Allison's research (finding that war occurred in 12 out of 16 cases of rising vs. ruling powers over the last 500 years), conflict is not preordained. History also offers examples of major power transitions without direct, large-scale war between the primary contenders. Understanding why these transitions were peaceful is essential for assessing how the US and China can avoid the trap.
The Anglo-American Transition: Perhaps the most cited exception is the peaceful handover of global domination from Great Britain to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Several factors facilitated this: cultural and linguistic kinship, shared democratic values, strong economic interdependence, and the emergence of common threats (Imperial Germany, later the Axis powers) that encouraged alignment rather than conflict. Recognizing the changing power dynamics and facing other imperial concerns, Britain chose accommodation over confrontation.
Post-WWII Germany and Japan: The rise of West Germany and Japan as economic powerhouses occurred under the security umbrella and political influence of the United States during the Cold War. They did not directly challenge the US; it happened within an American-led order to contain a common adversary, the Soviet Union. Shared democratic institutions and security dependence prevented rivalry from escalating into conflict.
The End of the Cold War: While involving the collapse of one superpower rather than the rise of another to challenge the US, the peaceful end of the US-Soviet rivalry demonstrated that even intense ideological and military competition need not end in war, partly due to the stabilizing influence of nuclear deterrence and, eventually, internal changes within the Soviet system (this dormant conflict is now on the rise from Russia's invasion of Ukraine).
Comparing these exceptions to the current US-China dynamic reveals more cause for concern than comfort. Unlike the US and the UK, the US and China lack cultural kinship and share opposing political ideologies and value systems. While economically interdependent, this interdependence is increasingly viewed as a vulnerability or leverage point by both sides, leading to efforts towards "de-risking" or decoupling in strategic sectors. While common global threats like climate change and pandemics exist, cooperation remains vulnerable to rivalry. China is not rising within an American-led order but actively seeks to reshape aspects of that order to reflect its interests and values better. While nuclear deterrence exists between the US and China, its stability is delicate due to emerging technologies (hypersonic missiles, AI-enabled warfare) and the lack of established arms control dialogues and transparency mechanisms.
The current environment presents unique factors that could either mitigate or aggravate the Thucydides dynamic:
Hyper-Connectivity: Globalization means economic shocks or conflicts can propagate globally quickly. While interdependence can theoretically raise the costs of war, it also creates supply chain vulnerabilities and avenues for economic pressure.
Technological Acceleration: Rapid advances in AI, cyber capabilities, biotechnology, and space technology create new domains for competition where norms and rules of engagement are poorly defined, increasing the risk of miscalculation and unintended escalation.
Information Environment: The digital age allows for sophisticated information warfare, disinformation campaigns, and the amplification of nationalist narratives, making it harder to maintain diplomatic channels based on shared facts and easier to inflame public opinion towards conflict.
Climate Change: While a catalyst for cooperation, competition over resources impacted by climate change or disagreements over mitigation strategies could also become significant sources of friction.
Thucydides' relevance lies not in providing an unalterable future but in showing the structural forces and psychological dynamics that make conflict likely during periods of power transition. Fear, honor, and interest are drivers of state behavior, and their confluence in the US-China relationship creates a situation with risk, more so than historical precedents, due to ideological differences and destabilizing new technologies.
However, history also shows that war is not an iron law. Peaceful transitions, though rare, have occurred when mitigating factors like shared values, common threats, skillful diplomacy, and mutual accommodation prevail. The existence of nuclear weapons adds a layer of caution absent in Thucydides' time, though it does not eliminate the risk of conventional conflict or accidental escalation.
Ultimately, escaping the Thucydides Trap is not a matter of historical inevitability but of human choice and statecraft. It requires Washington and Beijing to resist the pull towards conflict in several areas: establishing channels of communication to manage crises and reduce miscalculation; seeking areas of cooperation on shared global challenges like climate change and pandemic preparedness, even amidst competition; exercising mutual restraint in regions like Taiwan and the South China Sea; promoting greater understanding of each other's interests and security concerns (without necessarily accepting them); and resisting the domestic political pressures that often fuel nationalist zeal and demonize the adversary.
President Trump has historically done a poor job of controlling demonized rhetoric toward China. In a tweet in August 2019, after announcing increased tariffs, he referred to China's leader and the Federal Reserve Chairman, stating, "My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?" In January 2020, at the signing of the Phase One Trade Deal, he stated, "For decades, China has taken advantage of the United States in trade, intellectual property theft, and so much else...Today, we take a momentous step, one that has never been taken before with China, toward a future of fair and reciprocal trade." In August 2020, while announcing executive orders against TikTok and WeChat, he stated, "For years, the Chinese Communist Party has been...stealing our intellectual property, which is a very big deal, and conducting corporate espionage on a grand scale." Since his reelection, the same tone has continued. Blaming China directly for economic woes or the pandemic, emphasizing "America First" and portraying China as a direct adversary are all part of a consistent message that China has been taking advantage of the United States for decades.
The path forward demands a tricky balance: competing where interests diverge while cooperating where they align and avoiding actions that could lead to direct military confrontation. It requires leaders on both sides to look beyond short-term gains and historical grievances towards a longer view of stability. The recent tariff war is a hopeful example of confrontation avoided. After an initial tit-for-tat hiking of tariffs, sharp rhetoric, and a tense standoff, both sides met in Geneva and struck a deal earlier this week.
"Both countries represented their national interest very well. We both have an interest in balanced trade, the US will continue moving towards that. The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. "And what had occurred with these very high tariffs was the equivalent of an embargo, and neither side wants that. We do want trade."
So it seems, economic confrontation has been avoided, at least for now. On the other hand, Taiwan increased its spending on defense in anticipation of a Chinese invasion, hoping to hold off the Chinese navy long enough for the US to come to the rescue. Taiwan's initial 2025 defense budget proposed by the Cabinet was NTD 647 billion (around $19.8 billion), which equated to about 2.45% of Taiwan's GDP. However, President Lai subsequently pledged to raise defense spending to exceed 3% of GDP, potentially through special budgets. Tension in the area is at an all-time high.
Thucydides warned us about the dynamics that lead to war; he did not condemn us to repeat them. The challenge for the US and China is to heed the ancient historian's diagnosis while actively working to defy his prognosis, proving that even amid structural pressures, wisdom and foresight can still shape a different future. Global stability depends on it.
Darrell Lee is the founder and editor of The Long Views, he has written two science fiction novels exploring themes of technological influence, science and religion, historical patterns, and the future of society. His essays draw on these long-standing interests and apply a similar analytical lens to politics, literature, artistic, societal, and historical events. He splits his time between rural east Texas and Florida’s west coast, where he spends his days performing variable star photometry, dabbling in astrophotography, thinking, napping, fishing, and writing, not necessarily in that order.