44. Why the US and China Might Be Headed for War

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[00:00:03.50] - Oliver (Host)

Why do great powers go to war? Is it about resources, ambition, pride? Or is it something more fundamental to the nature of power? That is, a kind of fear that once you've got power, you're always worried, you're always scared that you might lose it. There's a phrase that's been popping up more and more in foreign policy circles, newspaper columns, and even military briefings, and that phrase is The Thucydides Trap. It sounds ancient, and it is.

[00:00:37.03] - Oliver (Host)

It comes from a Greek historian who lived almost 2,500 years ago. But strangely, this old idea has become one of the most talked about theories for understanding the modern world, and especially the growing tension between the United States and China. It's been mentioned in US Senate hearings, presidential speeches, and even at the World Economic Forum. Politicians love it, journalists reference it, and historians argue about it. In today's episode, we're going to unpack it. What is The Thucydides Trap? Where does it come from? And perhaps most importantly, is it true? Let's find out.

[00:01:17.44] - Oliver (Host)

But before we begin, welcome back to English and Beyond: Advanced. As always, you can find the transcript and flashcards on our website, morethanalanguage.com. If you find this podcast a little too challenging, be aware that we always have an intermediate version, English and Beyond: Intermediate English Podcast. Let's get back to today's topic.

[00:01:38.48] - Oliver (Host)

To understand the trap, we need to go back to Ancient Greece. As regular listeners will know, I studied Ancient Greek, the language, and ancient history at university, and Thucydides was probably my favourite ancient prose author. He was certainly my favourite historian to read when I was teaching in the UK. Thucydides was a historian and political thinker from Athens, who lived during the fifth century BCE. His great work, The History of the Peloponnesian War, describes the decades-long conflict between Athens and Sparta, the two great hegemonic powers of the ancient Greek world. But one of the great things about ancient historians, and Thucydides in particular, was that he was actually a general during the war about which he wrote. This obviously brings into play the possibilities of bias, historiographical issues, etc. And it also leads to an confusing section of his history in which he has to narrate his own complete strategic failure in the third person.

[00:02:38.56] - Oliver (Host)

But in any case, Thucydides wasn't just writing about battles; he was trying to explain why the war happened. And this was an extremely complex question, and there were many ancient theories, and many modern books have been written about this very question. But Thucydides did seem to come to a striking conclusion in one part of his history, and he wrote, "It was the rise of Athens and the fear this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable." In other words, the war wasn't caused by a single event or a misunderstanding, it was caused by a shift in the balance of power and the fear that that shift created. Athens was growing in influence, economically, militarily, culturally. It had the momentum. It had radical new ways of doing things, and that was scary. And Sparta, the established military power of ancient Greece, felt threatened. Neither side, Athens nor Sparta wanted war, or at least didn't seem to want it. But war came anyway. For Thucydides, the deeper cause wasn't simply strategy or greed, it was insecurity and the chain reactions that insecurity can trigger. So why do we care about one historical historian who wrote about a particular war that took place two and a half millennia ago. Well, fast forward almost 2,500 or so years, and in 2017, Harvard professor Graham Allison published a book called Destined for War: Can America and China escape Thucydides' Trap?

[00:04:20.43] - Oliver (Host)

In it, he looked at 16 historical cases where a rising power challenged a ruling power. In 12 of those cases, the result was war. He called this pattern the Thucydides Trap, the idea that when a new power rises and threatens the dominance of an existing one, conflict becomes highly likely, if not inevitable. Suddenly, this old Greek idea had a new life because the rising power in today's world is China, and the ruling power is the United States. Think of it like this, two countries walking down the same narrow corridor, neither willing to step aside. One sees itself as the future, and the other believes it already owns the path. So who moves first? And what happens if neither does? Of course, the theory isn't just about war. It's about fear, miscalculation, and escalation. Leaders don't want war, but history shows us that when power shifts fast, even rational actors can end up in irrational situations. And that's why the Thucydides Trap has become such a useful and controversial metaphor in global politics today. This isn't just a history lesson. The reason the Thucydides Trap has reappeared in modern political conversation is because people see clear echoes of it in today's world, particularly in the relationship between China and the United States.

[00:05:50.57] - Oliver (Host)

As I've said, China is a rising power. In terms of its economics, its military, its technology, it has grown faster and more strategically than almost any country in modern history. And the United States of America? It's still the dominant global force, but more anxious than ever about its position. Just like Athens and Sparta, the fear between these two powers isn't necessarily based on reality. It's based on perception. The US sees China as assertive, aggressive, and desiring to reshape the global order. China sees the US as paranoid, hypocritical, and unwilling to share power. Every disagreement over Taiwan, over trade, the South China Sea, technology, everything becomes more than just a policy issue. It becomes symbolic, it becomes emotional, it becomes dangerous. Here's where the trap becomes truly frightening. We know that neither side really wants war. Both know how devastating it would be. But when fear escalates and both sides start to prepare for the possibility of conflict, the risk grows and we can find ourselves trapped in a downward cycle with no way out. One military exercise leads to another. One tariff leads to retaliation, to revenge, essentially. And one bad misstep, and we're in a full-blown crisis.

[00:07:20.17] - Oliver (Host)

This is the logic of the Thucydides Trap. It's not about desire. It's not even about rationality, necessarily. It's about fear. History shows that fear can make even smart leaders act rashly. However, not everyone agrees with this theory, and that's really important. Some scholars argue that the Thucyddies Trap is too simple. Yes, it's a cool story, and the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens is, for me, by far the most fascinating conflict I've ever read about. But is this conflict really that relevant for today's world? We're living now in a truly globalised economy. The US and China are deeply interconnected in trade, in finance, even in culture now. War between them wouldn't just be catastrophic, it would be potentially economically suicidal for both. And unlike 2,500 years ago, the quality of the weapons that each country possesses now means that the consequences of war would be horrendous. Surely that acts as a major deterrent. The sheer scale of destruction, the the reality of a truly nuclear conflict, the knowledge that there may be no real winner left. Others say that the theory ignores things like diplomacy, soft power, domestic politics, or it overestimates how emotional states like fear actually translate into policy.

[00:08:49.58] - Oliver (Host)

And of course, not every story of a rising power has ended in conflict. When the United States overtook Britain as the dominant power in the early 20th century, they didn't go to war. Likewise, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union never became a truly hot war despite massive tension. So is the trap real or is it just an interesting metaphor, one that helps us talk about power, insecurity, and global change. Even Graham Allison admits it's not inevitable. After all, he says that he wrote the book to warn, not to predict.

[00:09:30.33] - Oliver (Host)

So, César, I know you're extremely excited to be here to talk about this topic. You've been saying to me all week, "This is just in my wheelhouse. This is right up my street."

[00:09:40.30] - César (Guest)

What was the first phrase?

[00:09:42.28] - Oliver (Host)

This is in my wheelhouse.

[00:09:45.10] - César (Guest)

In my wheelhouse?

[00:09:46.26] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. What do you think it might mean?

[00:09:47.40] - César (Guest)

Like, I'm looking forward to this.

[00:09:49.48] - Oliver (Host)

No, not actually. So if something is in your wheelhouse, it means that it's within your range of expertise, that thing. You feel comfortable with it. As I said, also, you can say it's right up your street, or we could say that you feel like you're in your element, and you're in your element with this topic, which is geopolitical crises, warfare on an international scale.

[00:10:17.49] - César (Guest)

It's not on my element. I found it very interesting.

[00:10:20.25] - Oliver (Host)

You're not in your element.

[00:10:21.45] - César (Guest)

I'm not in my element.

[00:10:23.22] - Oliver (Host)

And it's not in your wheelhouse.

[00:10:24.56] - César (Guest)

And it's not in my wheelhouse. But I did your speech or your spiel -

[00:10:32.41] - Oliver (Host)

My spiel.

[00:10:33.54] - César (Guest)

Spiel. Very interesting. I learned about many different things. So thank you very much. Actually, recently, I did on my Spanish podcast, Intermediate Spanish podcast by Spanish Language Coach, just in case someone is learning Spanish. Recently, I did an episode whose title was, "Does Europe need to prepare for a war?" It was quite interesting to do the research and learn different theories about the need or not to get ready just in case. Some people argue that it's better to get ready, and that would actually diminish the chances of war and other people say otherwise.

[00:11:19.22] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. Basically, does it escalate or de-escalate the levels of tension that we're certainly experiencing on a global level right now? I think that that's interesting that you did this episode, and I've done this one as well. It's a coincidence. It's not planned that we should both do an episode about this, I don't know, geopolitical goings-on.

[00:11:39.27] - César (Guest)

Well, it's a current issue.

[00:11:41.15] - Oliver (Host)

Exactly. It's something that I think is worrying a lot of people, isn't it? There are lots of different regions involved. I think that one of the things that I think is quite interesting about something like the Thucydides Trap is that we can look back and think, "Oh, it's quite a small conflict" in in the sense that it was really an intra-Greek conflict. But for them at the time, that was like a world war. It took in the whole of the Greek world, essentially, and beyond. Persia got involved, and Egypt saw some military activity as well. I think that's the thing, that something that can be actually quite a small initial spark can spiral into a conflict on a huge scale. Because one of the things that is quite interesting about the Peloponnesian War and the Thucydides Trap is that really it was a third party. It was an ally of Sparta, Corinth, which really drove the two major powers, Athens and Sparta, to actually go to war formally, because there are lots of proxy wars, and we can see that nowadays, can't we?

[00:12:56.38] - César (Guest)

Yeah, with the commercial war, for example.

[00:12:59.22] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. Well, Actually, sorry to interrupt you, but one of the things that's interesting that I think people, when I was teaching in school, always found shocking was that things like sanctions, things like tariffs, are millennia, millenniums, millennia-old, because the Athenians, one of the things that they did to a Spartan ally, to Megara (or Megara), was they applied strangulation through economic sanctions. It was one of the five biggest reasons why Sparta ended up formally going to war with Athens because of essentially something a bit like tariffs. So a really basic question, perhaps. How worried do you feel now that you've done this intermediate episode about, really, it was Europe and Russia, right? How worried do you feel that that could just be one theatre of a World War III, and maybe the biggest theatre of war might be China and America?

[00:13:57.02] - César (Guest)

As you mentioned on your monologue, I think the difference now is that any kind of big war could be the end of potentially nations.

[00:14:08.16] - Oliver (Host)

It's a very different scale from the ancient world because I love the ancient world. I'm sorry, this is probably not interesting to people that much, but one of the things that I thought was interesting about the ancient world is that, yes, they didn't have nuclear weapons, but they did absolutely destroy societies. So they would...

[00:14:31.25] - César (Guest)

They had nuclear weapons?

[00:14:33.11] - Oliver (Host)

No, they didn't have nuclear weapons.

[00:14:34.59] - César (Guest)

I'm sorry.

[00:14:35.49] - César (Guest)

I was like, "What?!"

[00:14:37.28] - Oliver (Host)

But for example, there was an island where they were neutral. They were an island, and most islands were aligned to the Athenians because they were a naval people, a seafaring people. But the island, I think, had an ethnic kinship with the Spartans, and so they were actually neutral. And the Athenians basically came to them and said, "If you don't join the Athenian side, we're going to kill you all." And they had this quite intellectual debate, which is replicated in Thucydides, about the nature of war and the nature of allyship and things like that, and essentially, the Athenians make some really interesting points that we're starting to see coming up again now, which is that morality doesn't really matter. What matters is power, and we have power, and you do not have power. So you are going to join us or you are going to die. And this island's city state basically refused to join them and wanted to maintain their neutrality. And so the Athenians just killed them all. They killed all of the men and sold all of the women into slavery. And they just wiped out places like that. The Spartans did the same with Plataea. So you basically had these whole states, just city states, just disappear off the map.

[00:16:05.54] - Oliver (Host)

Sometimes they were refounded, sometimes they weren't. And I think that's quite interesting that although they didn't have weapons of mass destruction, they still managed to basically commit genocides on a smaller scale, but within a whole people would just disappear from the map. You'd have a long history of people just gone. I think that that is quite interesting that we have changed, we have progressed, and yet so much of the ancient world basically could be applicable again quite soon.

[00:16:38.10] - César (Guest)

Because we are more, I guess we have a developed version of a human being compared to the ones 2000 years ago, but we're still killing people.

[00:16:50.26] - Oliver (Host)

We're still defending our territories and bombing people, innocent people, sibling people. Well, I think you could question how much how much of a developed version of human we are then. Because I think that you can take a lot of the speeches that were made - you know, if you go and read some of the ancient speeches from Thucydides, especially, but from other ancient historians as well, you could move them pretty much word for word into the modern day, and it wouldn't lose that much. I think it's fascinating, it's depressing. It's really, really worth reading the ancient historians. If you've ever wondered about reading Thucydides, now is the time.

[00:17:35.22] - César (Guest)

Just to clarify, the Americans would be the people from Athens, right?

[00:17:41.43] - Oliver (Host)

No. The Spartans.

[00:17:42.51] - César (Guest)

The Spartans, yeah.

[00:17:43.35] - Oliver (Host)

They were the established power.

[00:17:45.05] - César (Guest)

They were the established power, and the Chinese were the people from Athens.

[00:17:49.32] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, this rising power. They've got the momentum. They're scaring the American Spartans.

[00:17:54.59] - César (Guest)

From my understanding, the Americans won, right? What happened after that?

[00:18:02.12] - Oliver (Host)

Well, this is an interesting lesson. I think it's a good question because sometimes winning can be a bad thing because they won. Well, firstly, Athens was not kept down for long. They returned to their new imperialistic ways very quickly. But more significantly than that, I think America, sorry, Sparta, was at the height of its power after winning the the Peloponnesian War. They had basically unparalleled control over the other Greek city states. But within 40 years or so, they were done. Their illustrious history came to an end with a bang against another new power, and the Greeks were staggered by this. So it's a warning that sometimes you can win a war and things are not your future success and prosperity are not guaranteed. Yeah. Thank you, César, as always. We tried to make this episode short and sweet.

[00:19:06.40] - César (Guest)

Thank you. Bye-bye.

[00:19:09.37] - Oliver (Host)

Bye. Bye-bye.