Since the end of the Second World War, many people have described the international state of affairs as the Pax Americana. This title seemed fitting as it illustrated a global hegemony and resulting world order dominated by the political, economic and militaristic supremacy of the United States. However, as the adage says, ‘all things must pass,’ leading many in the field of international relations to turn back to Thucydides and his theory of hegemonic war due to fear of a resurgent China that threatens America’s reign in the international hierarchy (Allison and Wessley, 2017).
The most prominent scholar espousing Thucydides’ relevance today is unquestionably Graham Allison. His Thucydides Trap project has found particular popularity amongst high ranking members of the Trump Administration, which has been overtly antagonistic of China since the inception of the President’s 2016 campaign (Jaffe, 2017). Allison’s (Allison, n.d.) research at Harvard’s Belfer Center makes the case for imminent impending war between the superpowers as twelve of the sixteen currently completed case studies have resulted in open conflict between a rising power and the seated hegemon. While Thucydides intended for his History of the Peloponnesian War to stand in perpetuity as a reference for future generations, his account is no portent and can illuminate how modern statesmen can circumvent war by not allowing feelings of fear, pride, and insecurity in a changing world to result in carnage (Gilpin, 1988 p. 591).
As the United States has lost ground in the international market due to a surging Chinese economic powerhouse, there are still ways that the seated power can curtail the challenging state (Allison and Wessley, 2017). The struggles between the United States and the United Kingdom in the early 20th century and later the United States and the United Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) during the Cold War, provide modern policy decision makers with the ability to understand how concessions and utilization of new technologies can allow hegemons to retain power and avoid open conflict in a changing international arena (Allison, n.d.).
What is the Thucydides Trap?
Much of international relations is preoccupied with the concept of authority in the international system. With mankind being ordered into disparate communities defined by the allegiance to a multitude of governing bodies relegated to territorial holdings, it seems evident that human beings operate in an anarchic arena. People fear that while we enjoy the comforts of human endeavor not achieved by lesser animals, human beings maintain a propensity towards violence that is inherent in their nature (Kokaz, 2001 p. 30). This human inclination leads to the assumption ‘that individuals are innately compelled to dominate when not opposed by countervailing power,’ causing the accumulation dominance of the international order and a necessity to maintain it in the face of others that may emulate them (Monten, 2006 p. 11). The concept of war causation due to the pride associated with the actualization of control and the fear of relinquishing the reigns of dominance that lead to war are derived from Thucydides’ History’s Melian Dialogue and Athenian Thesis, oft referenced by modern Realists and the Thucydides Trap itself (Kokaz, 2001 p. 29).
Thucydides’ A History of Peloponnesian War recounts the war between Sparta and Athens as a result of the latter’s growing power in the face of formers seated dominance of the Hellenic sphere (Jaffe, 2017). Sparta had become the predominate force in the region due to its leadership of the Greek city states in its opposition to Persian aggression and its subsequent prominence in the resulting Peloponnesian League alliance due to its strong land forces (Ibid.). In the years to follow, Athens developed a strong maritime presence to support its economy and launched an aggressive expansionary campaign characterized by its preference towards conquest of, rather than cooperation with, smaller city-states (Robinson, 2017).
The Melian Dialogue: The Roots of the Trap
The Melian Dialogue describes one such interaction, when the Athenians explain to the defiant leaders of Melos the rationale behind their impending invasion of the island. Having established their power through force and determined to maintain their position through a continuation of this strategy, the Athenians provide the Melians with an ultimatum; surrender or be destroyed (Ibid.). The Melians, however, plead for mercy by claiming that they wish to remain neutral in the wider struggle between Athens and Sparta, as well as the displeasure Athenian aggression will inspire in both the gods and their Spartan allies (Ibid.). Sadly, the Melians rejected the Athenian surrender offer and were destroyed after Athens laid siege to Melos, which resulted in the punitive massacre of all male survivors and the sale of all women and children into bondage. The reliance on religious morality and assurance in their ally’s commitment to their safety failed to dissuade Athenian aggression and led to the ruination of Melos (Ibid.). The Melian Dialogue has formed the foundation of Realist adherence to power politics and the belief that morality and pride in the face of a clearly superior opponent can result in ruinous missteps or excessive action (Kokaz, 2001 p. 31).
The Athenian Thesis results from this event and describes an Aristotelian view of the anarchic world (Welch, 2003 p. 307). In the midst of the discussion with the Melians, Athens’ representatives explain their utilization of force as a result of natural power dynamics. From their perspective, the powerful have the right to do as they please due to their force capabilities, while the weak, powerless to resist, are forced to accept the conditions imposed on them by the strong (Kokaz, 2001 p. 36). This statement has led Realist theorists to attribute war causation to the insecurity created by the presence of other states capable of threatening the vital interests of one another and unrestricted by the anarchic condition of international affairs (Schneider, 1960 p. 282).
The Thucydides Trap expounds on this by exploring the power dynamic between a currently dominant state that becomes fearful of a rising power that challenges its position in the international hierarchy, due to an entitlement to the security and benefits that come with its dominance (Allison, 2015). Such hegemonic crises are often characterized by a coalescence of the international community around each of the prospective belligerents in diametrically opposed allegiances as both attempt to maximize their capabilities to either challenge or maintain the hegemon and the hierarchy it represents. These formations present triggers for open conflict as both parties are obliged to support their allies in conflicts they would not usually enter in order to retain support and oppose their true opponent, exacerbating these events dues to their wider-arching contest. Unable to fathom the loss of the advantages inherent to hegemony, established powers find themselves succumbing to pressures that create open warfare that they would have otherwise avoided. In the cases where the pressures of hegemonic transition have not resulted in war ‘it required huge, painful adjustments in attitudes and actions on the part not just of the challenger but also the challenged’ (Ibid.). However difficult it may have been, the international society has managed to come to the brink of war before but have managed to constrain itself and avoid combat.
The World Not at War
The Thucydidean conception of the world relies on a Hobbesian assumption that its states exist in a perpetual contest for control of the international system. However, viewing these entities as monoliths defined by their relations with one another strips international affairs of the domestic advancements and interests that truly influences their foreign policy and give credence to the fears of their opponents (Monten, 2006 p. 8). Viewing the world through Waltz’s Kantian second image provides a more in depth understanding of the internal progressions a state is experience that allows its operators to extend its influences beyond its borders (Schneider, 1960 p. 284). This distinction allows us to avoid a heuristic explanation that reduces humanity to pessimistic assumptions of human nature while examining the circumstances that empower rivals that sitting hegemons will have to adjust to in order to avoid conflict. For example, Athens did not suddenly decide to absorb large swaths of the Hellenic world, but sought to expand after a population boom following the Greek wars with the Persians made their barren region unsuitable for their needs (Gilpin, 1988 p. 597). Their slow accumulation of power, which eventually threatened Sparta, can be attributed to policies aimed growing their preeminent navy needed to support the export economy that provided its citizenry with the necessary wheat it required (Ibid. p. 598). The resulting ten-year long war ended in a Spartan victory due to its superior land forces and alliances through the Peloponnesian League, as well as fractious internal political polarization in the young Athenian democracy.
However, perhaps understanding the causes of Athenian expansion could have led to pre-emptive Spartan policies aimed at curtailing the possibility of conflict (Allison and Wessley, 2017). Elucidating the true motivations of rising powers allows policy makers to avoid dangerous feelings of insecurity and hubristic provocations due to misperceptions of a challenging state’s intentions based on simplistic assumptions of mankind’s supposed natural inclination for war. While Thucydides appears to make the case that war is inevitable in these cases, and Allison’s Thucydides Trap qualifies this statement by indicating that war is simply highly likely, international affairs are defined by the choices we make. It is possible to utilize the conditions in play and make more nuanced choices to avoid open conflict. The hegemonic contests between the United States and the United Kingdom at the beginning of the 20th century and later the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) demonstrate the attitudes and strategies that can be successively utilized to mitigate the causes of war (Allison, n.d.).
The United States & the United Kingdom: Big Concessions, Bigger Concerns
Prior to the 20th century, the United States had been concerned with the establishment and consolidation of the political entity we know it as today. Having endured a revolution, several wars and an aggressive western expansion to the Pacific coast in the preceding century, the young nation seemed to have little interest in foreign intervention outside of a desire to be free of European encroachment. President James Monroe famously codified such sentiment in 1823 in his self-titled doctrine with the declaration “that we should regard any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety” (Lingelbach, 1921 p. 34). Although this sentiment appeared to imply a tacit agreement for reciprocal non-intervention in European affairs, the nation’s meteoric economic growth and industrialization after the American Civil War allowed the fledgling superpower to become ‘increasingly assertive in the Western Hemisphere, insisting on arbitrating disputes between European and Latin American states’ (Allison, n.d.). The American growing role in regional affairs and its stature in the global economy led many British statesmen, including Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, to begin considering another Anglo-American war to be a distinct possibility in the years to come. However, tensions were far from reaching a breaking point due to British continued military supremacy due to its imposing naval forces (Ibid.).
Navies have been used as a means of extending a state’s power beyond their natural borders throughout history. The ability to accrue economic prominence and project force across a region have afforded empires esteem that would have been far costlier to obtain through other means. The resulting competition due to threateningly evolving capabilities and overlapping interests created conflict throughout the ages, as witnessed in the Venetians and the Ottomans’ engagement at Lepanto and, later, the British and French naval forces deadly battle at Cape Trafalgar in the early 19th century (Connery, 2010 p. 686-689). Trafalgar still looms large in the British popular history due to the popularity of the Royal due to the organization’s role in establishing the nation’s far-flung empire, and resulting prestige, as well as their valiant conduct at the Cape. By the 20th century, the Royal Navy was second to none but was quickly seeing a resurgence of possible rivals, only one of which was the rapidly expanding United States. By 1910, the U.S. Navy had tripled in size and the country’s possessed the economic capacity to potentially dwarf the Royal Navy (Allison, n.d.). The rising American Goliath was rapidly becoming a primary concern for the British Admiralty.
These circumstances perfectly provide the instances in which feelings of insecurity and prideful pursuits to maintain hegemonic status could have erupted into Thucydidean violence. With the crown jewel of the British Empire beginning to dim beside the growing U.S. navy and the obstacles it posed to the Anglo world order crafted by its navy, as evidenced by the American presence in the 1895 Venezuela Crisis, one would expect the British to attempt to curtail their challenger’s advancements (Ibid.). However, the United Kingdom took a measured approach that allowed the continued growth of an American global military presence as it turned its gaze towards more immediate presences in Europe.
Britons had enjoyed relatively little competition in the Eastern Hemisphere as the continent recovered from its destructive wars of the late 19th century. By the turn of the century, the United Kingdom witnessed the resurgence of Russian fleet that had been decimated by the nation’s war with Japan and rumors of a German fleet determined to build a vast navy defined by new ships designed to dwarf the Royal Navy’s Dreadnoughts (Bashford, 1907 p. 225-227). Preoccupied with new threats closer to home and continued administration Britain’s vast empire, Lord Salisbury decided not to add an enemy he deemed ‘bound to forge ahead and nothing can restore the equality between us’ to his list of concerns (Allison, n.d.).
This prognosis allowed the United Kingdom to avoid the dreaded Thucydides Trap as it clearly understood its inferior capabilities for similar growth in the future and the dearth of acceptable allies in the Americas to counterbalance the United States. Operating under this assessment steps were taken to both endear and accommodate the budding superpower. First, the British Admiralty discreetly allowed the U.S. Navy to continue to grow without attempting to maintain its Two Standard policy as a means of countering its capabilities. The Empire also complied with the Monroe Doctrine through a series of deferential territorial and trading concessions in the Western hemisphere which only furthered the American ascension (Ibid.). The Salisbury Government’s ability to comprehend the shifting international hierarchy and operate accordingly without hubristic opposition allowed the Britons to combat graver concerns closer to home while improving relations with a soon-to-be overwhelmingly powerful actor. If the instinct to escalate tensions amidst the United States increasing role in the disputes of the Americas or felt threatened by its growing naval forces, the United Kingdom could have found itself at a disadvantage without American support in the subsequent hegemonic crisis, the First World War (Ibid.). This case study clearly delineates the importance of recognizing the true capabilities of the state in a changing world and the grace to accommodate such advancements in other actors it understands to lack of dominating ambitions.
The United States & the USSR: Red Scares and Red Lines
The hegemonic tension experienced between the U.S. and the United Kingdom passed peacefully due to understanding the challenger’s ambitions and acceptance of their growth by the maintaining power. The Cold War, however, was defined by continued brinkmanship in periphery states as American and Soviet leaders grappled with misconceptions of the others’ intentions under the looming spectre of nuclear annihilation (Allison, 2012 p. 12; Leffler, 2005 p. 65). Initiated seemingly before the ink even dried on the non-conditional surrenders of Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan, the Cold War saw the hegemonic United States determined to contain the renascent Soviet Union which posed an ideological threat to the liberal global order being enacted (Leffler, 2005 p. 65). While the two superpowers maintained a relationship that seemed fit to erupt at any moment over a myriad of triggers, such as communist-leaning post-colonial nationalist movements to proxy wars worldwide, the ability to compete outside of armed contests allowed the world to avoid the Thucydides Trap (Allison, n.d.).
The Second World War left the world in tatters. With the great cities of Europe and much of Asia reduced to rubble and millions of people dead, all of the great powers had been reduced to shells of their former selves. Despite the proliferate destruction, the United States concluded the war physically unscathed and clearly the only great power capable of mounting a claim to global hegemon. The crux of the American reign has been dependent on its utter economic domination; after the war, the United States ‘possessed two-thirds of the world’s gold reserves and three-fourths of its invested capital,’ the countries gross national product dwarfed those of the USSR and United Kingdom many times over (Leffler, 2005 p. 66). This omnipresent participation in the international market gave the United States not only an interest in preserving the global capitalistic system, but a sense of ownership in its stewardship. Given the Marxist ideology of the Soviet Union, the United States saw the possible expansion of the Russian sphere of influence beyond its Eastern Bloc and the continued creation of leftist post-colonial nationalist movements as a threat to this economic world order (Ibid.). This dynamic would define the succeeding four decades as both great powers moved to accumulate allies as bastions of their respective stances against what they both perceived to be the expansionary intentions of the other.
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