Destined for War

Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

Graham Allison

What it’s about

The book isn't alarmist prophecy but a probabilistic warning: Over the past 500 years, 16 clear cases of such rivalries occurred; war broke out in 12 (75%). Allison examines historical parallels (e.g., Athens-Sparta, Spain-Portugal, Germany-Britain pre-WWI, U.S.-U.K. peaceful transition) alongside China's explosive economic/military rise and America's relative anxieties. He explores flashpoints (South China Sea, Taiwan, trade wars, cyber incidents) that could ignite escalation, while emphasizing war is not inevitable—peaceful transitions happened when leaders made painful adjustments.

Why I like it

In my effort to understand humans and their world, I struggle to understand politics, and I also generally find it uninteresting, which hinders my ability to learn about it. I found this book to be fascinating and learned a lot about the politics and culture of China, in addition to the US, and how the politics and cultures of each both increase and reduce the probability of a full-scale war between the two nations. I read it while simultaneously reading Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War, by P.W. Singer and August Cole. Reading the two in combination provided an enthralling sense of how a war between these two remarkable nations might play out and what it would be like to experience it.