THUCYDIDES TRAP PART II

As a history enthusiast, to say that I’m not intrigued by the very idea of Thucydides trap is an incredible understatement. Add to that, you have 16 cases of mostly European history to review from. I’m very intrigue! Call it boredom but in fact, I could add a few cases to the study of Thucydides’ trap. Anyway, here are the 16 case studies enumerated by Graham Allison:

	Period	Ruling Power	Rising Power	Result	War	Winner	Aftermath
1	1st half of the 16th century	France	Hapsburg Empire	War	Italian Wars	Hapsburg	France degenerated into chaos and civil war while the Spanish Empire was born. Italy where the wars are mostly fought laid devastated
2	16th – 17th century	Hapsburg Germany (Holy Roman Empire)	Ottoman Empire	War	Hapsburg -  Ottoman Wars	Ottoman Empire	Tripartite division of Hungary into Royal Hungary, Transylvania, and Ottoman occupied Hungary (from which the legend of Dracula is born). It would take another century before Hungary regains its freedom.
3	17th century	Hapsburg Germany	Sweden	War	30 Years War	Sweden	Part of the Reformation, one of most destructive wars, Germany was utterly devastated by the war.
4	17th century	Dutch Republic	England	War	1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Anglo – Dutch Wars	England	The war is about control of the maritime trade and colonies. The leader of the Dutch Republic eventually became the rulers of UK (William III and Mary) through the Glorious Revolution but the Dutch economy declined afterwards and soon became a second rate power
5	Late 17th century – early 18th century	France	Great Britain	War	War of Spanish Succession, War of Augsburg, War of Devolution, War of Reunion, American Revolution	France	France’s Bourbon dynasty became the new ruling house of Spain but the wars overstretch France leading in a generation later to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Also, America became independent of UK.
6	Late 18th and early 19th century	UK	France	War	Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars	UK	The first of the modern day Total War. France’s manpower was severely depleted by the wars and would take a generation to recover. Furthermore, civil strife was common leading eventually to the establishment of the 2nd (or was it the 3rd) French Republic.
7	Mid 19th century	UK France	Russia	War	Russo – Turkish War or the Crimean War	UK France	Russian expansion was checked but Ottoman Turkey was devastated by this war. Florence Nightingale was a participant in this war.
8	19th century	France	Germany	War	Franco – Prussian War	Germany	The second French Empire is dissolved, Germany is unified under the Hohenzollern due to the machination of Otto Von Bismarck to establish the German Empire.
9	Late 19th – early 20th century	Russia China	Japan	War	1st Sino – Japanese War, Russo – Japanese War	Japan	Japan became the premier power in East Asia, Korea becomes a colony of Japan, years later, both the Qing Empire and the Russian Empire fell to Revolutions and ensued a bloody civil war.
10	Early 20th century	UK	US	NO WAR		US	The Great Depression
11	Early 20th century	UK France Russia	Germany	War	World War I	UK France	Utter devastation in terms of lives and property for both the winners and losers. This war saw the dissolution of the 4 empires, The Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire, and the Austro – Hungarian Empire. Civil wars in Turkey and Russia resulted from this world war. The resulting economic hardship formed one of the causes of the Great Depression. Furthermore, the war brought about the world’s first pandemic, the Spanish Flu.
12	Mid 20th century	Russia, UK, France	Germany	War	World War II	Russia, UK, France	The most devastating war ever with millions killed both civilians and combatants. In the end, Germany is divided.
13	Mid 20th century	US	Japan	War	World War II	US	Atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima Japan.
14	1970s – 1980s	Soviet Union	Japan	NO WAR		Japan	Asian Economic Miracle
15	1940s – 1980s	US	USSR	NO WAR		US	Cold War, USSR collapse after America outspend the Soviets in the arms race dragging the USSR to bankruptcy. In between however, several proxy wars erupted such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
16	1990s - present	UK France	Germany	NO WAR		Germany	Germany became the most wealthiest and most influential country in the EU

The first 4 or 5 columns were taken from Graham Allison, the last 3 columns were my additions. Personally, I don’t agree with the some of the identities of the rising/ruling power nor is the definition of rising and ruling power. For instance, case #1, calling France a ruling power is iffy. If my memory serves me right, France at that time, has just emerged from the Hundred Years War with England and has just successfully centralized under the Valois kings. France fit the bill of a rising power more than say a ruling one. The Hapsburg in this case study is under the rule of Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (as Carlos I, king of the united Spain). Spain has just finished with its Reconquista and is just unified as a single kingdom while the Holy Roman Empire is being forcefully centralized after centuries of fragmentation. Therefore, the Hapsburg Empire could also be considered as a rising power also. So the point is instead of saying that one is the rising power and the other ruling power, it is more appropriate to say that both France and Hapsburg are contending rising power of that era. So where is the Thucydides trap there? Anyway, going by Graham Allison’s definition, it is interesting to note that of the 16 cases being reviewed, there are 9 instances wherein the rising power won including the peaceful ones (where war didn’t happen). Further analysis would show that Case #1 (Catholic – Hugenot religious tension and conflict), #2 (Protestant Reformation), #3 (Protestant Reformation), and #8 (Political strife under Napoleon III, Republicanism is on the rise), the ruling power is facing a very serious socio – political upheaval at home while in case #4, 9, 10, 14 and 16, the ruling power were in various stages of decline which is why the rising power won. The rising powers in these cases also faces challenges but compared to their counterpart, the ruling powers, they can be considered to be in the pink of their health. Of the remaining 7 cases wherein the ruling power won, case #12 is unique (WWII) because the ruling powers won due to outside intervention of another rising power. Cases 5, 6, 7, 11, 15, the ruling powers simply outlasted the rising powers. Case 13 is also unique because the ruling power is decidedly more powerful than the rising challenger.

To be continued…

Thucydides' Trap

Most people have a misconception about historians in general. They think that historians are people who remember the names of people who are dead for decades if not centuries as if they are their best friends, or about dates in the past as if it’s their birthday or talk about events long gone and buried in sand as if they were there to personally witness it. Can’t blame them because that is what most people came to know about history. Dates, events, names of great personality, the very things that they tried in vain to memorize and remember in their high school history exam. History however is more than just names, events, and dates. History is about the past, or more apt, the logic of what happened and why it happened in the past. Believe it or not, the more you study history, the more you’ll discover that history follows a pattern, a recurring pattern. The old adage that “history repeats itself” is quite true. And nothing rings truer than the concept of a “Thucydides’ Trap”, a term coined by Graham Allison of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of the Harvard Kennedy School in 2015. Thucydides from which the trap was named was an Athenian general and a noted historian during the Peloponnesian War (some 2,400 years ago) and after the defeat of Athens, he wrote a book, “History on the Peloponnesian War”. At the conclusion of his seminal work, Thucydides concludes “It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this inspired Sparta, that made this war inevitable.” It is from this conclusion that Graham Allison formulated his Thucydides trap, “when a rising power challenges a ruling power, war inevitably ensued and would end badly for both”. He further reinforces his thesis by analyzing events of the past 500 years mostly in Europe with one Asian case, that of the 16 cases of Thucydides trap, 12 resulted in war. In 4 cases, war was avoided. Graham Allison developed this thesis not out of some academic boredom but to analyze the present relationship of China (the rising power) and the US (the ruling power). To him, the Sino – US conundrum fits the bill of a Thucydides trap and to quote Graham, “when a rising power’s growing clout resulted into growing entitlement, sense of it’s importance, and demand for greater say and sway which in turn, engenders the ruling power’s fear, insecurity, and determination to defend the status quo”, a fact that is in full display right now. And to Graham, the current path of the Sino – US friction would more likely to lead to conflict, war and bloodshed but this is not inescapable provided that “cooler heads” prevail and that people heeds the lessons of history.

To read more about Graham Allison’s work try this page, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/thucydides-trap-are-us-and-china-headed-war