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

: 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.

The "trap" refers to the dangerous structural stress that occurs when a (China) threatens to displace a ruling power (the United States). Destined for War: Can America and China Escape ...

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 : All-out war could be sparked by "ordinary

: 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" , Harvard scholar Graham Allison warns that the

: China’s rapid economic ascent is unparalleled—surpassing the U.S. in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)—while the U.S. maintains a "DNA to be Number One".

: 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".