To understand this timely book one must first understand the Thucydides paradox (referred to in modern International Relations terminology as Thucydides Trap) and its implications for American–Chinese relations. Expounding on the Peloponnesian War that devasted ancient Greece, Thucydides declared that “it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” The “Thucydides Trap” arises in International Relations (IR) when “a rising power threatens to displace an established ruling power.” As history has shown, violent conflicts often, though not inevitably, follow.
This idea is central to Graham Allison's book. In fact, it is so dear to the author that in his quest for establishing that truth, he has scrutinized the past 500 years for cases of rising powers challenging ruling powers. His research has identified 16 such cases, 12 of which ended in open conflict. And the high number of cases that have led to war lead Allison to a persuasive quasi-historical hypothesis that a rising power threatening to displace an established ruling power could potentially lead to war or other conflicts. Today, according to Allison, as the unstoppable “economic giant” China faces an unshakable and cavalier America on the international stage, where both Xi Jinping and Donald Trump vow to make their countries “great again,” we may be seeing the seventeenth case looming on the horizon.
The book is structured in four parts: The Rise of China, Lessons from History, A Gathering Storm, and Why War is Not Inevitable. In Part I, Allison summarizes The Rise of China. Although the press think the Chinese economy is slowing down, he argues otherwise, distinctively pointing out that “between 2011 and 2013 China both used and produced more cement than the US did in the entire twentieth century” (p. 13). He draws attention to the size, speed, and scale at which, in just a single generation, China has risen and emerged to uproot the United States as a hegemony in several parts of the world. Allison expounds on the soft power strategy that China has been using to its advantage—a soft power strategy that includes trade and investment policies, foreign aid, and climate change policies. China's presence is so undeniably increasing, to the point where even longtime United States allies—especially in Asia—are tilting toward China.
Part II gives a historical review of 500 years of European challenges, during which period the 16 cases were recorded. The author uses these cases to draw his analogy with the recent relations between the United States and China. He draws the conclusion that “none of the conflicts were inevitable” (p. 43), and he notes that the rising powers thought they were only establishing their “rightful place in the pecking order” (p. 49).
In Part III, The Gathering Storm, the author asks whether the current policies are gravitating toward war. He then makes quite a bold comparison between American views of present-day Chinese “aggressive behaviors” and the 1914 European crisis and Theodore Roosevelt's “virile conception of international altruism” (p. 93). He goes on describing how China is currently throwing its weight around, as did the United States a hundred years ago in Cuba, the Philippines, and in seizing Alaska's panhandle and decreasing Canada's territory. He even takes a jab at the Chinese president's counterpart in Washington by noting that “What Xi's China Wants” is “Making China Great Again.” If possible, and many believe it is, China will reach its goals without fighting. But in the meantime, it will strengthen and train its forces to be ready for any potential contingencies. But, in the words of President Xi, China's dream is to “fight and win” (p. 117). Furthermore, Allison argues that, as China pursues objectives that show the “deep cultural differences” (p. 141) between the two countries—a matter completely independent of the structural composition of Thucydides's Trap—it will become more challenging to manage its rivalry with the United States.
In the final Part IV, the author skillfully analyzes the four historical cases in which rising and ruling powers successfully directed their ships of state through slippery paths without giving into war. In doing so, he identifies “twelve clues” (pp. 187–213) for US leaders pursuing the rise of a peaceful China—that is, to make this a case of no war. He also summarizes China's astonishing economic growth, political endeavors, and geostrategic progress over the past 20 years. Allison thinks it is absolutely unwise to belittle China, as the current US President does. Better to thicken “economic entanglements” with the Chinese rather than humiliate them and be humiliated; as Thucydides teaches us, honor is everything. If the author's recommendations were to be followed for better strategic thinking, every party involved would benefit in the long run. He concludes this section by suggesting that the US should try to accommodate China, negotiate for long-lasting peace, and redefine the relationship between two new great powers.
To critically evaluate the work of an author with such a stellar reputation is a difficult, but necessary task. Although Destined for War is a valuable lens through which chiefs of state, military officers, diplomats, strategists, and scholars could see the current, but ever-changing relationship between the US and China, some of the author's arguments regarding the policy and strategic responses America should pursue seem to be less salient or even inappropriate. For instance, the author asserts that “history shows that major ruling powers can manage relations with rivals, even those that threaten to overtake them, without triggering war. The record of those successes, as well as the failures, offers many lessons for statesmen today” (p. xvii). However, the challenge here is to distinguish the historical lessons for preventing war, which vary extensively and are in some cases mixed, if not conflicted. Two cases may serve to illustrate this idea: In Case 11, the British response to a rising American power in the early twentieth century, Allison notes that Great Britain chose a strategy of advantageous accommodation, hence resolving “to make a virtue of necessity and to yield to the Americans in every dispute with as much good grace as was permitted” (p. 197). In case 15, a rising Soviet Union challenged the United States for several decades, but with “no war” (p. 42) as end result. The author describes this approach as the “greatest leap of strategic imagination in the history of America diplomacy,” a “comprehensive strategy for a form of combat never previously seen,” fostered a cold war “by every means short of bombs and bullets” (pp. 202–203). Here, again, although the ultimate outcome was not war, “the US and Soviet Union made systemic, sustained assaults against each other along every azimuth except one: direct military attacks” (p. 203). The above two examples offer undeniably different historically founded approaches: advantageous accommodations or cold war. The advice to “apply history,” while wise, thus still prompts questions of which history and how it is to be applied to the unique US–China relations.
A few other issues invite scrutiny. First, the author holds a rather optimistic view of the direction of the Chinese economy—an optimism by no means unanimous share among scholars and analysts who track the Chinese economy. Second, the unprecedented nature of nuclear weapons challenges the usefulness of pre-1945 cases as litmus tests to predict the future of a US–China conflict. At the same time, however, scholars and strategists should not conclusively discredit the historical observations drawn from the pre-nuclear era.
Finally, the book offers too small and limited a data set (only 16 cases), made up of mostly European cases, to support statistically based claims and explain the particularly restrained Chinese track record in terms of military interventions. How do we make sense of Chinese military strategy without looking at domestic and normative variables? Despite these minor shortcomings, this book is an absolute must-read for all those in international affairs or political science, at any capacity.
