Jeffrey E. Schulman
Geopolitical tension looms over American politics, as was evident in last month’s debate when Kamala Harris claimed her rival “sold us out” to China. Though election rhetoric has heightened these tensions, headlines suggest the risk of war with China has been growing for years.
In 2022, the Chinese military launched missiles over Taiwan. Just this June, the Chinese coast guard injured a Filipino sailor going to resupply an outpost off the Philippines’ coast; on August 26, a Chinese military plane violated Japanese airspace for the first time, forcing Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to scramble aircraft. The numerous points of tension sometimes make war seem inevitable, leading experts like Harvard’s Graham Allison to wonder if the United States and China have fallen into a “Thucydides Trap.” The term refers to the tendency of a rising power to come into conflict with an established one. The term originates with the ancient Greek historian Thucydides’ claim that the rise of his native Athens made war with the longstanding might of Sparta inevitable.
While empires old and new have collided many times since Thucydides wrote in the fifth century B.C., his History of the Peloponnesian War remains compelling because of how closely the tensions between fiercely democratic Athens and authoritarian Sparta resemble contemporary circumstances. In fact, today’s situation differs from Thucydides’ more than generally appreciated. However, reading his history of the war between Athens and Sparta (431–404 B.C.) closely, one can see that it nevertheless provides a compelling warning about the importance of political stability.
No comments:
Post a Comment