Scan barcode
joestewart's review against another edition
5.0
Wow! Allison presents a clear summary of Thucydides’s Trap, a set of compelling arguments that we face this trap in our competition with China, and, unlike several of my recent reads, he offers a solid collection of ideas of how to avoid the trap. If you think you’ve got problems, read this book and you’ll appreciate how minor your problems are.
mikefromco's review against another edition
slow-paced
3.0
This book is already suffering from being outdated. It’s fine, it has a decent historical approach to a modern situation.
It just sticks to the Thucydides Trap motif for so long it becomes incredibly dry and basically have waves the Cold War away as not the same when it’s far far more similar than Athens and Troy.
Just dry and I wasn’t a fan.
It just sticks to the Thucydides Trap motif for so long it becomes incredibly dry and basically have waves the Cold War away as not the same when it’s far far more similar than Athens and Troy.
Just dry and I wasn’t a fan.
bucketoffish's review against another edition
4.0
I think this book has an interesting thesis and is well-argued. It uses applied history to look at instances where one dominant power has become threatened by the coupled economic and military rise of another power. In recognition of the realpolitik principle that international agreements are backed by military force, the rising power threatens to gain more sway on the international stage, with the current power standing to lose influence. If this situation arises, the actual intentions of the two parties become essentially irrelevant - the ground becomes set for conflict.
Allison analyzes multiple instances in history where this type of situation has occurred, and discusses the events that followed. The situation begins like this: the leading power is maintaining some kind of international order (control of trade routes, economic systems, colonies, military bases, political alliances, etc.) which is detrimental in some way to the rising power. The rising power now feels strong enough to resist the systems put in place by the leading power. If it were the case of a weaker state, the leading power could simply force compliance via blockades, military threats, government overthrow, or economic sanctions, but these tactics aren't necessarily effective if the rising power has become strong enough to stand up for itself. If there is no clear stronger party, then disagreements could lead to actual fighting, rather than deference to the international law upheld by the stronger state.
Most often in the cases studied, the parties involved didn't actually want war, but were led to it almost against their will. In the case of conflicts of essential national interests, there is often a slow ramping up, essentially a game of chicken, where the goal is to get the other country to back down and accept the new (or current) order without actual use of force. The problem is that a country can't simply give up its own interests without any protest, but if shows of force continue to escalate on both sides to a point short of actual conflict, then a small incident can cross the line and set an actual war in motion. In almost all of the cases studied, the spark for war was something tangential to the main conflict, or even based on misinformation, but since tensions had already built so high, the advent of war was now unstoppable. The balancing act here is to get the other country to back down by getting as close to a war as possible without actually having a war (which is usually a lose-lose situation for both sides). But obviously this situation is unstable.
In most cases studied in the Thucydides Trap Project, nations in these situations have ended up at war, but there were several instances where war was successfully averted. Allison talks a bit about these situations, but I feel that his analysis here was a bit weak. Overall though, I still feel the book presents a valuable viewpoint and was well argued.
Allison analyzes multiple instances in history where this type of situation has occurred, and discusses the events that followed. The situation begins like this: the leading power is maintaining some kind of international order (control of trade routes, economic systems, colonies, military bases, political alliances, etc.) which is detrimental in some way to the rising power. The rising power now feels strong enough to resist the systems put in place by the leading power. If it were the case of a weaker state, the leading power could simply force compliance via blockades, military threats, government overthrow, or economic sanctions, but these tactics aren't necessarily effective if the rising power has become strong enough to stand up for itself. If there is no clear stronger party, then disagreements could lead to actual fighting, rather than deference to the international law upheld by the stronger state.
Most often in the cases studied, the parties involved didn't actually want war, but were led to it almost against their will. In the case of conflicts of essential national interests, there is often a slow ramping up, essentially a game of chicken, where the goal is to get the other country to back down and accept the new (or current) order without actual use of force. The problem is that a country can't simply give up its own interests without any protest, but if shows of force continue to escalate on both sides to a point short of actual conflict, then a small incident can cross the line and set an actual war in motion. In almost all of the cases studied, the spark for war was something tangential to the main conflict, or even based on misinformation, but since tensions had already built so high, the advent of war was now unstoppable. The balancing act here is to get the other country to back down by getting as close to a war as possible without actually having a war (which is usually a lose-lose situation for both sides). But obviously this situation is unstable.
In most cases studied in the Thucydides Trap Project, nations in these situations have ended up at war, but there were several instances where war was successfully averted. Allison talks a bit about these situations, but I feel that his analysis here was a bit weak. Overall though, I still feel the book presents a valuable viewpoint and was well argued.
haligon_ian's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
tense
fast-paced
4.0
seeyf's review against another edition
4.0
Allison’s Thucydides’s Trap Project studied 16 cases where a major nation's rise disrupted the position of a dominant state, of which 12 ended in war. A breezy read with interesting analysis of how wars are sparked or averted. However parts of his argument seem a tad deterministic: that the US and China will always have fundamentally irreconcilable cultural differences i.e. Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations, or that China’s growth is unstoppable (ignoring the demographic and other traps covered in Magnus’ Red Flags)