Thucydides Other Traps

Author : Alan Greeley Misenheimer
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 76 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2019-06-06
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1072555425

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Thucydides' Other "Traps" by Alan Greeley Misenheimer Pdf

The notion of a "Thucydides Trap" that will ensnare China and the United States in a 21st century conflict-much as the rising power of Athens alarmed Sparta and made war "inevitable" between the Aegean superpowers of the 5th century BCE-has received global attention since entering the international relations lexicon 6 years ago. Scholars, journalists, bloggers, and politicians in many countries, notably China, have embraced this beguiling metaphor, coined by Harvard political science professor Graham Allison, as a framework for examining the likelihood of a Sino-American war. This case study examines the Thucydides Trap metaphor and the response it has elicited. Hewing closely to what the historian of the Peloponnesian War actually says about the causes and inevitability of war, it argues that, while Thucydides' text does not support Allison's normative assertion about the "inevitable" result of an encounter between "rising" and "ruling" powers, the History of the Peloponnesian War (hereafter, History) does identify elements of leadership and political dynamic that bear directly on whether a clash of interests between two states is resolved through peaceful means or escalates to war. It is precisely because war typically begins with a considered decision by a national command authority to reject other options and mobilize for conflict (and thus always entails an element of choice) that insight from Thucydides' History remains relevant and beneficial for the contemporary strategist, or citizen, concerned in such decisions.Accordingly, this case study concludes that the Thucydides Trap, as conceived and presented by Graham Allison, draws welcome attention both to Thucydides and to the pitfalls of great power competition, but fails as a heuristic device or predictive tool in the analysis of contemporary events. Allison's metaphor offers, at best, a potentially misleading over-simplification of Thucydides' nuanced and problematic account of the origins of the epochal conflict that defined his age. Moreover, it overlooks actual insights from the History that can help political decisionmakers-including, but not limited to, those of the United States and China-either avoid war or, if ignored, pose genuine policy "traps" that can make an avoidable war more likely, and a necessary war more costly.

Author : Graham Allison
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2017-05-30
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780544935334

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Destined For War by Graham Allison Pdf

NATIONAL BESTSELLER | NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR. From an eminent international security scholar, an urgent examination of the conditions that could produce a catastrophic conflict between the United States and China—and how it might be prevented. China and the United States are heading toward a war neither wants. The reason is Thucydides’s Trap: when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling one, violence is the likeliest result. Over the past five hundred years, these conditions have occurred sixteen times; war broke out in twelve. At the time of publication, an unstoppable China approached an immovable America, and both Xi Jinping and Donald Trump promised to make their countries “great again,” the seventeenth case was looking grim—it still is. A trade conflict, cyberattack, Korean crisis, or accident at sea could easily spark a major war. In Destined for War, eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison masterfully blends history and current events to explain the timeless machinery of Thucydides’s Trap—and to explore the painful steps that might prevent disaster today. SHORT-LISTED FOR THE 2018 LIONEL GELBER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: FINANCIAL TIMES * THE TIMES (LONDON)* AMAZON “Allison is one of the keenest observers of international affairs around.” — President Joe Biden “[A] must-read book in both Washington and Beijing.” — Boston Globe “[Full of] wide-ranging, erudite case studies that span human history . . . [A] fine book.”— New York Times Book Review

Author : Steve Chan
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2020-01-06
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780472131709

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Thucydides’s Trap? by Steve Chan Pdf

The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) ostensibly arose because of the fear that a rising Athens would threaten Sparta’s power in the Mediterranean. The idea of Thucydides’ Trap warns that all rising powers threaten established powers. As China increases its power relative to the United States, the theory argues, the two nations are inevitably set on a collision course toward war. How enlightening is an analogy based on the ancient Greek world of 2,500 years ago for understanding contemporary international relations? How accurate is the depiction of the history of other large armed conflicts, such as the two world wars, as a challenge mounted by a rising power to displace an incumbent hegemon?Thucydides’s Trap?: Historical Interpretation, Logic of Inquiry, and the Future of Sino-American Relations offers a critique of the claims of Thucydides’s Trap and power-transition theory. It examines past instances of peaceful accommodation to uncover lessons that can ease the frictions in ongoing Sino-American relations.

Author : Thucydides
Publisher : Library of Alexandria
Page : 461 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 1965
Category : Greece
ISBN : 9781465581570

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The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides Pdf

Author : Dong Wang,Travis Tanner
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 231 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2020-12-29
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781351206655

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Avoiding the ‘Thucydides Trap’ by Dong Wang,Travis Tanner Pdf

As the relationship between China and the United States becomes increasingly complex and interdependent, leaders in Beijing and Washington are struggling to establish a solid common foundation on which to expand and deepen bilateral relations. In order to examine the challenges facing U.S.-China relations, the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) and the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding (iGCU) at Peking University brought together a group of leading experts from China and the United States in Beijing and Honolulu to develop a conceptual foundation for U.S.-China relations into the future, tackling the issues in innovative ways under the banner of U.S.-China Relations in Strategic Domains. The resulting chapters assess U.S.-China relations in the maritime and nuclear sectors as well as in cyberspace and space and through the lens of P2P and mil-to-mil exchanges. Scholars and students in political science and international relations are thus presented with a diagnosis and prognosis of the relations between the two superpowers.

Author : U. S. Military,Department of Defense (DoD),Alan Greeley Misenheimer,U. S. Government
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 100 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2019-10
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1696969190

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Thucydides' Other "Traps" - The United States, China, and the Prospect of "Inevitable" War - Origins of War, Roles of Economic Power, Leaders, Allies, Causality and Necessity, Human Rights in China by U. S. Military,Department of Defense (DoD),Alan Greeley Misenheimer,U. S. Government Pdf

Two authoritative reports are included in this unique reproduction. The notion of a "Thucydides Trap" that will ensnare China and the United States in a 21st century conflict--much as the rising power of Athens alarmed Sparta and made war "inevitable" between the Aegean superpowers of the 5th century BCE--has received global attention since entering the international relations lexicon 6 years ago. Scholars, journalists, bloggers, and politicians in many countries, notably China, have embraced this beguiling metaphor, coined by Harvard political science professor Graham Allison, as a framework for examining the likelihood of a Sino- American war. Allison's active promotion has given Thucydides (ca. 460-ca. 399 BCE), historian of the Peloponnesian War, new cachet as a sage of U.S.-China relations. References in academic journals, politicians' speeches, and political cartoons have become ubiquitous across the Indo- Pacific region. Allison examines this historical metaphor at length in his May 2017 book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? This case study examines the Thucydides Trap metaphor and the response it has elicited. Hewing closely to what the historian of the Peloponnesian War actually says about the causes and inevitability of war, it argues that, while Thucydides' text does not support Allison's normative assertion about the "inevitable" result of an encounter between "rising" and "ruling" powers, the History of the Peloponnesian War (hereafter, History) does identify elements of leadership and political dynamic that bear directly on whether a clash of interests between two states is resolved through peaceful means or escalates to war.Contents: 1. Introduction * 2. From the Aegean to the South (and East) China Sea * 3. Reactions to the Thucydides Trap * 4. Power Transition Theory before the Thucydides Trap * 5. What Does Thucydides Actually Say about the Origins of the War? * 6. In Search of Causality and Necessity: Aitiai and Prophasis * 7. Fear, Honor, and Interest, and Thucydides' other "Traps" * 8. Trap 1: National Character * 9. Trap 2: Governing System * 10. Trap 3: Domestic Tranquility * 11. Trap 4: Economic Power * 12. Trap 5: Leaders * 13. Trap 6: Allies and Alliances * 14. Trap 7: The Role of Tykē (Chance) in Peace and War * 15. Assessing the "Allison Trap" * 16. Conclusions: Destined for Difficult Diplomacy, Not for War * 17. Geography, History, DestinyThis compilation also includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.Additional content: CRS Report, Human Rights in China - Thirty years after the June 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the Communist Party of China (CCP) remains firmly in power. People's Republic of China (PRC) leaders have maintained political control through a mix of repression and responsiveness to some public preferences, delivering economic prosperity to many citizens, co-opting the middle and educated classes, and stoking nationalism to bolster CCP legitimacy. The party is particularly wary of unsanctioned collective activity related to sensitive groups, such as religious and labor groups, ethnic minorities, political dissidents, and human rights activists. PRC authorities have implemented particularly harsh policies against Tibetans, Uyghurs, and followers of the Falun Gong spiritual exercise. Under the previous PRC leader, Hu Jintao (2002-2012), the CCP tolerated limited public criticism of state policies, relatively unfettered dissemination of news and exchange of opinion on social media on some topics, and some human rights advocacy around issues not seen as threatening to CCP control.

Author : Huiyun Feng,Kai He
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2020-02-19
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780472131761

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China’s Challenges and International Order Transition by Huiyun Feng,Kai He Pdf

China’s Challenges and International Order Transition introduces an integrated conceptual framework of “international order” categorized by three levels (power, rules, and norms) and three issue-areas (security, political, and economic). Each contributor engages one or more of these analytical dimensions to examine two questions: (1) Has China already challenged this dimension of international order? (2) How will China challenge this dimension of international order in the future? The contested views and perspectives in this volume suggest it is too simple to assume an inevitable conflict between China and the outside world. With different strategies to challenge or reform the many dimensions of international order, China’s role is not a one-way street. It is an interactive process in which the world may change China as much as China may change the world. The aim of the book is to broaden the debate beyond the “Thucydides Trap” perspective currently popular in the West. Rather than offering a single argument, this volume offers a platform for scholars, especially Chinese scholars vs. Western scholars, to exchange and debate their different views and perspectives on China and the potential transition of international order.

Author : Richard N. Rosecrance,Steven E. Miller
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2014-11-21
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780262028998

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The Next Great War? by Richard N. Rosecrance,Steven E. Miller Pdf

Experts consider how the lessons of World War I can help prevent U.S.–China conflict. A century ago, Europe's diplomats mismanaged the crisis triggered by the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and the continent plunged into World War I, which killed millions, toppled dynasties, and destroyed empires. Today, as the hundredth anniversary of the Great War prompts renewed debate about the war's causes, scholars and policy experts are also considering the parallels between the present international system and the world of 1914. Are China and the United States fated to follow in the footsteps of previous great power rivals? Will today's alliances drag countries into tomorrow's wars? Can leaders manage power relationships peacefully? Or will East Asia's territorial and maritime disputes trigger a larger conflict, just as rivalries in the Balkans did in 1914? In The Next Great War?, experts reconsider the causes of World War I and explore whether the great powers of the twenty-first century can avoid the mistakes of Europe's statesmen in 1914 and prevent another catastrophic conflict. They find differences as well as similarities between today's world and the world of 1914—but conclude that only a deep understanding of those differences and early action to bring great powers together will likely enable the United States and China to avoid a great war. Contributors Alan Alexandroff, Graham Allison, Richard N. Cooper, Charles S. Maier, Steven E. Miller, Joseph S. Nye Jr., T. G. Otte, David K. Richards, Richard N. Rosecrance, Kevin Rudd, Jack Snyder, Etel Solingen, Arthur A. Stein, Stephen Van Evera

Author : Howard W. French
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2017-03-14
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780385353335

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Everything Under the Heavens by Howard W. French Pdf

From the former New York Times Asia correspondent and author of China's Second Continent, an incisive investigation of China's ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy. For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That role, reports Howard French, has been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian dominance by building its navy, increasing territorial claims to areas like the South China Sea, and diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this attitude is a strain of thinking that casts China's present-day actions in decidedly historical terms, as the path to restoring the dynastic glory of the past. If we understand how that historical identity relates to current actions, in ways ideological, philosophical, and even legal, we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China stands to become--and to interact wisely with a future peer. Steeped in deeply researched history as well as on-the-ground reporting, this is French at his revelatory best.

Author : Thucydides
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2019-02-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9780691190150

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How to Think about War by Thucydides Pdf

An accessible modern translation of essential speeches from Thucydides’s History that takes readers to the heart of his profound insights on diplomacy, foreign policy, and war Why do nations go to war? What are citizens willing to die for? What justifies foreign invasion? And does might always make right? For nearly 2,500 years, students, politicians, political thinkers, and military leaders have read the eloquent and shrewd speeches in Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War for profound insights into military conflict, diplomacy, and the behavior of people and countries in times of crisis. How to Think about War presents the most influential and compelling of these speeches in an elegant new translation by classicist Johanna Hanink, accompanied by an enlightening introduction, informative headnotes, and the original Greek on facing pages. The result is an ideally accessible introduction to Thucydides’s long and challenging History. Thucydides intended his account of the clash between classical Greece’s mightiest powers—Athens and Sparta—to be a “possession for all time.” Today, it remains a foundational work for the study not only of ancient history but also contemporary politics and international relations. How to Think about War features speeches that have earned the History its celebrated status—all of those delivered before the Athenian Assembly, as well as Pericles’s funeral oration and the notoriously ruthless “Melian Dialogue.” Organized by key debates, these complex speeches reveal the recklessness, cruelty, and realpolitik of Athenian warfighting and imperialism. The first English-language collection of speeches from Thucydides in nearly half a century, How to Think about War takes readers straight to the heart of this timeless thinker.

Author : S. N. Jaffe
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2017-03-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9780192524744

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Thucydides on the Outbreak of War by S. N. Jaffe Pdf

The cause of great power war is a perennial issue for the student of politics. Some 2,400 years ago, in his monumental History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides wrote that it was the growth of Athenian power and the fear that this power inspired in Sparta which rendered the Peloponnesian War somehow necessary, inevitable, or compulsory. In this new political psychological study of Thucydides' first book, S.N. Jaffe shows how the History's account of the outbreak of the war ultimately points toward the opposing characters of the Athenian and Spartan regimes, disclosing a Thucydidean preoccupation with the interplay between nature and convention. Jaffe explores how the character of the contest between Athens and Sparta, or how the outbreak of a particular war, can reveal Thucydides' account of the recurring human causes of war and peace. The political thought of Thucydides proves bound up with his distinctive understanding of the interrelationship of particular events and more universal themes.

Author : Ryan Balot,Sarah Forsdyke,Edith Foster
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 773 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2017-02-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9780190647742

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The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides by Ryan Balot,Sarah Forsdyke,Edith Foster Pdf

The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides contains newly commissioned essays on Thucydides as an historian, thinker, and writer. It also features chapters on Thucydides' intellectual context and ancient reception. The creative juxtaposition of historical, literary, philosophical, and reception studies allows for a better grasp of Thucydides' complex project and its intellectual context, while at the same time providing a comprehensive introduction to the author's ideas. The volume is organized into four sections of papers: History, Historiography, Political Theory, and Context and Reception. It therefore bridges traditionally divided disciplines. The authors engaged to write the forty chapters for this volume include both well-known scholars and less well-known innovators, who bring fresh ideas and new points of view. Articles avoid technical jargon and long footnotes, and are written in an accessible style. Finally, the volume includes a thorough introduction prefacing each paper, as well as several maps and an up-to-date bibliography that will enable further study. The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides offers a comprehensive introduction to a thinker and writer whose simultaneous depth and innovativeness have been the focus of intense literary and philosophical study since ancient times.

Author : Max Brooks,John Amble,M. L. Cavanaugh,Jaym Gates
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2018-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781640120792

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Strategy Strikes Back by Max Brooks,John Amble,M. L. Cavanaugh,Jaym Gates Pdf

The most successful film franchise of all time, Star Wars thrillingly depicts an epic multigenerational conflict fought a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But the Star Wars saga has as much to say about successful strategies and real-life warfare waged in our own time and place. Strategy Strikes Back brings together over thirty of today's top military and strategic experts, including generals, policy advisors, seasoned diplomats, counterinsurgency strategists, science fiction writers, war journalists, and ground‑level military officers, to explain the strategy and the art of war by way of the Star Wars films. Each chapter of Strategy Strikes Back provides a relatable, outside‑the‑box way to simplify and clarify the complexities of modern military conflict. A chapter on the case for planet building on the forest moon of Endor by World War Z author Max Brooks offers a unique way to understand our own sustained engagement in war-ravaged societies such as Afghanistan. Another chapter on the counterinsurgency waged by Darth Vader against the Rebellion sheds light on the logic behind past military incursions in Iraq. Whether using the destruction of Alderaan as a means to explore the political implications of targeting civilians, examining the pivotal decisions made by Yoda and the Jedi Council to differentiate strategic leadership in theory and in practice, or considering the ruthlessness of Imperial leaders to explain the toxicity of top-down leadership in times of war and battle, Strategy Strikes Back gives fans of Star Wars and aspiring military minds alike an inspiring and entertaining means of understanding many facets of modern warfare. It is a book as captivating and enthralling as Star Wars itself.

Author : Christian R. Thauer,Christian Wendt,Ernst Baltrusch
Publisher : Springer
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2016-04-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781137527752

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Thucydides and Political Order by Christian R. Thauer,Christian Wendt,Ernst Baltrusch Pdf

This book, the second of two monographs, consists of contributions by world-class scholars on Thucydides' legacy to the political process. It also includes a careful examination of the usefulness and efficacy of the interdisciplinary approach to political order in the ancient world and proposes new paths for the future study.

Author : J. Michael Cole,Szu-chien Hsu
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2020-07-30
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1788692136

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Insidious Power by J. Michael Cole,Szu-chien Hsu Pdf