Throughout history, whenever a rising power threatens to replace a ruling one, the world approaches a fatal crossroads: cooperation or conflict.
This dynamic is captured by one of the most intriguing and unsettling theories in international relations — the Thucydides Trap.
The term originates from the Greek historian Thucydides, author of The History of the Peloponnesian War, who chronicled the epic struggle between Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BCE.
According to him, the war was inevitable because “it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable.”
Written over 2,400 years ago, that line has become a timeless lens through which to interpret shifts in global power — from the rise of Germany in the 19th century to today’s growing rivalry between the United States and China.
1. Definition of the Thucydides Trap
The “Thucydides Trap” is a concept in international relations theory that describes the tendency toward conflict when an emerging power threatens to displace an established one.
As the rising power’s influence expands — economically, militarily, or politically — the dominant power begins to perceive this growth as a direct threat to its security and prestige.
The result is often a spiral of fear, competition, and escalation that can culminate in war.
The theory was revived and popularized by Graham Allison, a professor at Harvard University, in his 2017 book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?
Allison and his team at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs examined 16 historical cases over the last five centuries in which a rising power challenged an established hegemon.
In 12 of those cases, the result was war.
The Trap does not mean war is inevitable; rather, it highlights the psychological and structural pressures that make conflict highly probable unless both sides manage the transition with extreme caution and foresight.
2. Origins: Athens vs. Sparta
The original case, narrated by Thucydides himself, is the perfect illustration.
In the 5th century BCE, after defeating the Persians, Athens rose to prominence as a maritime and economic power, leading the Delian League and projecting influence across the Aegean.
Its rapid expansion alarmed Sparta, the traditional land-based hegemon of Greece.
Sparta feared that Athens’s wealth, democracy, and naval might would eventually undermine its supremacy.
A web of alliances, mutual suspicions, and proxy conflicts escalated until, in 431 BCE, the Peloponnesian War broke out.
The conflict lasted nearly 30 years and ended with Athens’s defeat — but also with the ruin of the entire Greek world, paving the way for Macedonia’s later dominance.
Thucydides analyzed the tragedy not as a moral tale but as a structural pattern:
“It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable.”
That sentence still echoes in today’s foreign ministries and strategic think tanks — from Washington to Beijing.
3. The Trap Through History
a) Spain and France (16th Century)
After the unification of Spain and the discovery of the New World, Habsburg Spain under Charles V became Europe’s preeminent power, enriched by gold and silver from the Americas.
The Kingdom of France, encircled by Habsburg territories, perceived this dominance as a mortal threat and launched a series of wars to break it.
The Franco-Spanish rivalry lasted for generations and drained both empires, illustrating one of the earliest examples of the fear-driven cycle between rising and ruling powers.
b) Britain and France (18th Century)
By the 18th century, Great Britain had emerged as a naval and commercial superpower, while France remained dominant on the continent.
Their global rivalry for colonies and trade led to the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) — often called the first “world war.”
Britain’s victory established its global empire, while France’s colossal war debts contributed to the outbreak of the French Revolution.
Here again, competition for status and dominance produced both military and revolutionary upheaval.
c) Britain and Germany (19th–20th Century)
Perhaps the most frequently cited modern case is that of Britain, the established power, and Germany, the rising one.
After its unification in 1871, Germany under Bismarck became an industrial and scientific powerhouse.
Later, under Kaiser Wilhelm II, Berlin sought global recognition through an ambitious naval buildup.
London saw this as a direct threat to its maritime supremacy.
A naval arms race ensued, alliances hardened, and mutual suspicion deepened.
When the system finally collapsed in 1914, the world was plunged into the First World War — a catastrophic realization of the Thucydides Trap.
Neither Germany nor Britain emerged victorious in any meaningful sense; both were exhausted, and Europe’s era of global dominance was over.
d) The United States and the Soviet Union (20th Century)
During the Cold War, the Thucydides Trap reappeared in a nuclear age.
After 1945, the United States emerged as the dominant superpower, while the Soviet Union became its ideological and geopolitical challenger.
The two powers engaged in a global contest for influence — military, technological, and cultural — but never clashed directly.
The mutual threat of nuclear annihilation created a paradoxical peace: the balance of terror.
Moments such as the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) revealed just how close humanity came to falling into the trap.
The Cold War proved that the Trap can be avoided — but only under extraordinary circumstances and with continuous diplomacy.
e) The United States and China (21st Century)
Today, many scholars and strategists see the U.S.–China relationship as the clearest modern example of the Thucydides Trap.
Over the last three decades, China has transformed from an impoverished country into the world’s second-largest economy and a technological powerhouse.
Its global ambitions — symbolized by the Belt and Road Initiative — and its growing military reach have stirred deep anxiety in Washington, where policymakers fear the erosion of U.S. primacy.
Tensions over Taiwan, trade, semiconductors, and the South China Sea reflect this underlying struggle for dominance.
Neither side seeks open war, yet mistrust and national pride drive them closer to confrontation.
As Allison warns, “the greatest danger lies not in deliberate aggression but in miscalculation” — a crisis or accident that spirals out of control, just as the assassination in Sarajevo did in 1914.
4. Why the Trap Recurs: Structural and Psychological Causes
Why does this dynamic repeat itself throughout history?
The answer lies in a combination of psychological, political, and structural factors that accompany every power transition.
-
Fear of decline — The ruling power cannot accept its waning dominance and interprets every move by the challenger as aggression.
-
Mutual distrust — Each side assumes the other’s intentions are hostile, even when defensive.
-
Security dilemma — Military preparations by one are seen as threats by the other, fueling arms races.
-
National pride — Rising powers crave recognition; established ones refuse to concede it.
-
Miscommunication — Wars often begin through errors of judgment, not deliberate intent.
In short, the Thucydides Trap is a psychological trap as much as a geopolitical one — a conflict between perception and reality.
5. Escaping the Trap: Lessons from History
Despite its ominous record, the Trap is not inevitable.
Of the 16 cases studied by Allison, four ended without war — thanks to diplomacy, restraint, or changing circumstances.
Peaceful Transitions
-
Britain and the United States (19th century): As the U.S. grew in strength, Britain opted to accommodate rather than confront it, yielding influence in the Western Hemisphere.
-
The Cold War (20th century): The nuclear balance and the establishment of communication channels — like the “hotline” after 1962 — allowed coexistence without direct conflict.
How to Avoid the Trap
-
Strategic dialogue — Open communication reduces fear and clarifies intentions.
-
Economic interdependence — Deep trade and investment links make war prohibitively costly.
-
Institutional reform — Updating global institutions (UN, IMF, WTO) can reflect new realities and give emerging powers a stake in the system.
-
Shared leadership — Established powers must learn to share influence rather than cling to exclusivity.
Avoiding the Trap, in other words, requires humility, creativity, and empathy — qualities often missing in great-power politics.
6. The Trap in the 21st Century: Old Logic, New Terrain
In our era, the Thucydides Trap manifests in new forms.
The battlefield is no longer just military; it is technological, financial, and informational.
Rivalries over artificial intelligence, energy supply chains, and digital infrastructure embody the same logic of fear and supremacy that once animated Sparta and Athens.
Yet globalization has made the world so interdependent that an all-out war between great powers would be economically suicidal.
A conflict between the U.S. and China, for example, would devastate global markets, cripple supply chains, and plunge billions into poverty.
This mutual dependence is both a stabilizer and a source of vulnerability.
Many analysts therefore advocate a model of “competitive coexistence” or “managed rivalry” — a kind of armed peace where competition is balanced by continuous communication and crisis management.
7. Why Thucydides Still Matters
Thucydides was not only a historian but also one of the first realists in political thought.
He believed that human nature — driven by fear, honor, and interest — makes power struggles inevitable.
His insights remain remarkably relevant.
In an age of nuclear weapons, global markets, and artificial intelligence, the fundamental drivers of conflict remain the same as in ancient Greece: ambition and insecurity.
The Thucydides Trap is not a deterministic law but a mirror — reflecting our collective failure to manage power transitions rationally.
If history teaches anything, it is that avoiding disaster requires leaders who can rise above emotion and short-term politics.
Conclusion
The Thucydides Trap serves as both a warning and a lesson.
It reminds us that the fear of decline can be more dangerous than the rise itself, and that national pride often blinds leaders to the catastrophic costs of war.
From Sparta and Athens to Washington and Beijing, the pattern recurs: a rising power, a ruling power, and a fragile world order caught between them.
As Graham Allison concludes,
“The question is not whether China will challenge America, but whether America and China can avoid the madness that engulfed Athens and Sparta.”
Thucydides’s message, echoing across 24 centuries, is clear:
history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes, and every generation must learn to recognize — and escape — the traps it inherits.