Destined For War: Can America And China Escape ... May 2026

: Named after the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who observed that the Peloponnesian War was caused by "the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta".

In his influential 2017 book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? , Harvard scholar Graham Allison warns that the United States and China are on a collision course. While he stresses that , he argues that historical structural forces make it much more likely than most leaders acknowledge. The Core Concept: Thucydides’s Trap

: The rising power often views its growth as benign and grows more entitled, while the ruling power sees this as ungrateful and fears losing its edge. Why the US-China Case is "Grim" Destined for War: Can America and China Escape ...

: All-out war could be sparked by "ordinary flashpoints" or accidents that would normally be manageable, such as a trade conflict, cyberattack, or a crisis in Taiwan or the South China Sea.

Allison suggests several factors make this seventeenth case particularly dangerous: : Named after the ancient Greek historian Thucydides,

The "trap" refers to the dangerous structural stress that occurs when a (China) threatens to displace a ruling power (the United States).

: Allison’s team identified 16 cases over the last 500 years where a rising power challenged a ruling one; 12 of these resulted in war . While he stresses that , he argues that

: Both nations suffer from "extreme superiority complexes," viewing themselves as exceptional and peerless. Book Summary: Destined for War by Graham Allison