Thucydides Trap.

In his history of the Peloponnesian War (431 - 401 BC), historian and general of Athens, Thucydides kept an accurate record of the war, fought between Sparta and Athens. He is thought to be the father of how historical records are kept – just a cold recording of events, rather than introducing other ideas such as the intervention of the Gods. Thucydides stated that “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.” This idea that a rising power could inspire an established power to go to war with the rising power, was named the Thucydides Trap, by historian and philosopher Graham Tillett Allison, Jr. (born March 23, 1940). It is now taught across many military academies across the world. This idea has been linked to the rise of China and how it threatens the established power, the US and how the Thucydides Trap will befall both these powers, leading some commentators to say that the US and China are heading for war. Tensions over trade and the grabbing of huge areas in the South China Sea, means that China and America, are staring each other down, as China spends to bring its Navy up to levels that could challenge America. Japan is also beginning to free themselves from restrictions on the size and purpose of their military.

The idea that a rising power creates a trap into which the established power can fall into, may demonstrate the idea that two behavioural weather systems are attracting each other and growing heat and colliding fronts are pushing the two super powers toward conflict. The rising power is drawing resources from across the world, with trade, economic investment in China and currency flows (China holds trillions of dollars in US currency), means that the weather system it is creating is growing. It is what I call a ‘Build-up’. Build-ups are based on the idea that as people and resources come together, it will include a military build-up as the super power begins to perceive of growing threats to its interests, which are often spread widely across the world. There is an element of paranoid thinking involved which in turn leads to that super power ‘seeking out an enemy’. During much of the cold war period, between the 1950’s and 1980’s the US spent $3 trillion dollars of tax payer’s money on nuclear weapons development, alone. We now know due to the release of de-classified documents, that the threat from Russia throughout that period was greatly exaggerated. Russia (as it was then, the Soviet Union), only had a handful of nuclear weapons during the post war period, whereas the US claimed that they had a massive arsenal of weapons, in order to obtain more funding. They were also very behind in their technology for a large part of that same cold war period. The US developed solid state rocket fuel systems, which were lighter and smaller than the very large missiles which preceded them, whereas Russia had liquid fuel rockets which were much bigger.

Without data, the two weather systems of the US and China is difficult to illustrate. Flows of people, currency and resources would be adding to the Chinese Build-up, making the weather system larger and larger. This would have a gravitational effect on other weather systems in the area and as China’s size grows its gravitational effect would start to compound. The more resources that flow to it, the more will come on top of that. However, the US being geographically distant from China, questions whether geolocation data would be helpful or not, to understanding macro-human-behaviour. The US by contrast would lose resources and its economy will begin to shrink, particularly in the spending power of the middle classes, as jobs are exported to China. However, it has to be said that automation of production, has as much an effect on job losses as production of goods, flowing into China.

The Chinese government want China to head towards a post-industrial economy as soon as possible, but also, value added production, rather than producing stuff for the West based on their design.

The flows of resources as illustrated in the diagram below, reduces the gravitational pull of the US. However, the US economy is still growing at a steady pace, so any outflows of resources, may well be compensated for within the US economy. This means that despite the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, it won’t spell the end of the US as the world’s leading economy – at least not for some time yet. But it has to be said, that due to policies of multiple US governments, the US has crumbling infrastructure and a very poor, underfunded school system, which will store up problems for the US economy in the future. By contrast China is spending huge amounts of capital in brand new high tech infrastructure, such as fast trains, fast broadband and other significant projects, such as its Belt and Road initiative. America, despite its colonial ambitions, has never built other countries infrastructure, with the exception of military bases.

So are China and the US heading for a clashing weather front, which will cause a war? It is unlikely purely because both economies are intertwined. Any war would rip apart the economic entanglements between the two nations. Like Brexit, the political class would struggle to disentangle their economies safely. In Britain for example, our financial and industrial systems are geared towards the EU. Our supply lines are ‘just in time’ supply lines, which means friction at the border would not only disrupt this system, significantly but would also mean that parts that cross borders into mainland Europe would pick up tariffs every time they move for the next stage of assembly. So China would be set to lose the most in its relationship with the US, as its domestic economy is still being actively built, but is not yet enough to sustain a break with the US.

What does the entanglement and the two weather systems of China and the US mean for these countries in the future? If the US and Chinese economies continue to grow, then so too will their reliance on each other. So war is not very likely to happen. In the past wars have been fought in the absence of economic co-reliance. In this case the relationship is absolutely key to the Chinese who wish to continue to grow their economy, their influence on the world and to continue to build their military. In the US they know that the Chinese hold their currency in huge amounts and in any conflict China could suddenly release that currency on the markets and cause a massive oversupply, leading to a sharp devaluation of the dollar. The consumer market however, in not that large, but is growing, as the Chinese have put many obstacles in the way, such having to hand over technical details of technology to the authorities of products the US want to export to China. China hasn’t yet fully opened up its economy to foreign investment. That will be the next step on the rise of the Chinese as a global superpower. 

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