Are the U.S. and China Still Destined for War?

3d illustration two state flags of the united states of America and the Republic of China, facing each other and moving in the wind in front of cloudy sky

Posted: April 3rd, 2019

By Graham Allison

Graham Allison is a Professor of Government at the John K. Kennedy School at Harvard University. He was the Founding Dean of the Kennedy School and until recently the Director of the School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

A lot has happened since China expert and Harvard Professor Graham Allison’s best-selling book on China, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides Trap was published in 2017.

Thucydides was a Greek historian who chronicled close to three decades of war between Athens and Sparta and documented patterns of behavior between ruling and rising powers. In his book, Allison looked at centuries of conflict between ruling and rising powers, also looking for patterns in how powers challenged each other.

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