Given China’s expanding influence and continued efforts to accrue greater regional and global power, the so-called Thucydides Trap remains a favorite sound-bite used by many academic, military, and political leaders to summarize the dilemma the United States currently faces in the Indo-Pacific region. This idea holds that a rising China is on an inevitable course for armed conflict with an increasingly threatened United States. The ensuing and fervent discussions regarding various dove or hawk approaches have only grown louder in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, increased Chinese military encounters in response to the U.S. Navy’s Freedom of Navigation Operations, the COVID-19 global pandemic, and the current administration’s expanding trade war tariffs.
While war between the United States and China is a possibility, a larger and more refined lesson could be gleaned from Thucydides’ ancient text. In an era of great power competition, The Peloponnesian War provides one of the first nearly complete histories of a conflict that included complex alliances, ideologically opposing views, civil discord, diplomacy, total war, and human struggle. It provides examples of how the choices made by Athenian and Spartan leaders mattered in determining whether they avoided war or led their countries into conflict. Most importantly, The Peloponnesian War offers strategists and policymakers invaluable insights into the nature and character of competition between two great powers and makes clear the importance of strategic options that avoid ill-conceived conflict.
Strategic Parallels
For Sparta and Athens, a failure of strategic vision led to decisions that did not achieve the desired strategic effects for either city state.
The work of Thucydides, who not only observed the conflict but participated in it, warns of the true cost of war and demonstrates the criticality of employing an integrated strategy that incorporates diplomatic, informational, military, and economic means to create conditions for a range of acceptable political outcomes. His writing is a case study on the importance of strategy that bridges politics to action. For Sparta and Athens, a failure of strategic vision led to decisions that did not achieve the desired strategic effects for either city state. The speeches of the Athenian statesman Pericles and of Sparta’s King Archidamus still resonate because of their clarity in explaining what they perceived to be at stake in the contest between the two entities. One of the most striking examples of this conflict dilemma offered by Thucydides is found between the unwavering virtues described in the Funeral Oration by Pericles and the grim realities of the plague that ravaged the Athenians later in the conflict. It makes clear how espoused social ideals and political actions do not always align. The lofty convictions that intertwined with gritty reality more than two millennia ago remain true today in that the leaders of Athens and Sparta had a range of policy options and could have selected courses of action other than war in pursuit of their larger political objectives.
“Plague in an Ancient City” by Michael Sweerts (Wikimedia)
In the case of the Athenians, periods marred by political dysfunction and individual pursuits created an environment that lacked strategic focus and a commitment to pursuing acceptable long-term outcomes with regional competitors. In his speech to the Athenians in 432 B.C.E, Pericles reflected this tragic trajectory when he said, “I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy's devices,” Soon after, Athens became fully engaged in conflict with Sparta and—even with significant resources, innovation, and military might—it eventually met military and financial failure. Thucydides’ description of the truculent domestic political environment in the days prior to the outbreak of war also shows an Athenian citizenry surrounded by innovation and wealth but with little willingness to become involved in correcting the political disorder that ultimately resulted in failure.
The key tenet that strategic thinkers and policymakers should glean from Thucydides is not that armed conflict between two competing powers is inevitable.
Thucydides’ account provides similar parallels to the current strategic environment, which should serve as a warning of what could occur if the employment of a strategic vision falters. The key tenet that strategic thinkers and policymakers should glean from Thucydides is not that armed conflict between two competing powers is inevitable. Rather, this work should encourage readers to ask hard questions. How can all the instruments of national power be implemented simultaneously in a coordinated manner to reach strategic objectives? How can regional alliances be created to make countries mutually stronger and prosperous rather than putting them in situations of increased risk? Does a changing regional power dynamic invoke the necessity of armed conflict? In short, studying Thucydides should promote intellectual rigor, provide connection to historical inheritance, spark imagination, afford opportunity for emulation, and broaden contextual experiences that are imperative for U.S. strategic thinkers and policymakers as they begin to resource and synchronize integrated strategies.
Challenging The Thucydides Fallacy
While “fear, honor, and interest” play a role in international relations, they will not inevitably drive two countries to conflict or create an environment where “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” This often quoted passage from The Peloponnesian War does, however, highlight the criticality of leadership, the risk of political inaction, and the possibility for individual bias to result in devastating communal consequence. What should be carefully considered is that—just as in the time of Athens and Sparta—the current environment risks armed conflict not solely as a result of U.S. competitors, but also as a result of U.S. policymakers’ own misjudgments and misgivings. With this point in mind, the future of American success in achieving Indo-Pacific strategic objectives largely depends not on the relative advantage of sheer military capability but rather on foundational political requirements.
Policymakers must foster the bipartisan focus to work with both public and private sectors to develop an integrated strategic approach to frustrate Chinese objectives. Policymakers must also demonstrate the resolve to maintain an integrated strategy over time, even at the expense of short-term individual or political gain. Finally, policymakers must enable the success of long-term strategic objectives by adequately resourcing a synchronized whole-of-government approach that leverages all instruments of national power. Thucydides’ description of the political environment in the period leading up to the outbreak of war provides a salient reminder as to why policymakers must take this fundamental approach to foreign policy in an effort to avoid the pitfalls that result in an ill-conceived conflict.
Looking to the Future
Given the historical inheritance Thucydides provides, coupled with the current political realities, it is clear that partisan politics undercut the confidence of U.S. foreign and domestic policies, thereby creating opportunities for China to challenge the credibility and confidence of our alliances. The COVID-19 global pandemic has only added additional political and strategic considerations to an already complex challenge. The most current example of this competition is China’s disinformation campaign aimed at shaping the COVID-19 narrative. The Chinese Communist Party and state-controlled entities have used information warfare to propagate false narratives to cause domestic unrest among its Asian neighbors as well as within the United States. This is only the most recent Chinese effort to counter U.S. policy in any competitive environment in which it is capable of operating. These continued attempts to undermine U.S policy result in the nation’s diminished capability to implement and refine existing foreign policy to counter China’s actions in the Indo-Pacific region and globally.
Properly resourcing the United States’ strategic objectives across all instruments of national power requires strategic thinkers and policymakers to handle domestic and foreign challenges through compromise and bipartisan cooperation. A unified effort ensures that a rapid adjustment of resources and human effort can rebalance international conditions in the Indo-Pacific region. As part of the response to countering the information environment currently prevalent in the Chinese strategy, the regional Indo-Pacific strategy could expand its focus on promoting and strengthening new and enduring alliances, continuing the expansion of competitive space within the region, and increasing regional defense capabilities. This concept bolsters recent national strategy that prioritizes expanding and reinforcing America’s standing promotion of a networked Indo-Pacific region while also actively frustrating the network proposed by China.
Conclusion
No easy answer exists for how the U.S. can walk back from the conditions it has allowed to develop. Much as the Peloponnesian War did not occur as the preordained consequence of a destiny-shaping Thucydides Trap, armed conflict between competing powers in the present is not inevitable. Policymakers cannot reduce the competitive situation with China to that of dealing with a tragic actor condemned to a future of armed conflict within the region. While an American strategy that employs all instruments of national power does not guarantee success, its absence is a step closer to ensuring failure. A synchronized effort that incorporates diplomatic, informational, military, and economic means should be applied to counter Chinese objectives. China continues to implement a strategy that focuses beyond the military instrument of national power, and it has invested heavily in sectors that greatly increase the political clout it can wield in forming new alliances and dependencies while degrading the U.S. position in the region.
The Peloponnesian War remains a relevant text because it provides insights into the nature and character of competition between two great powers. As Thucydides makes clear, in an environment that is competitive but not combative, the risk of armed conflict demands the highest commitment to cooperation, unity of action, and disciplined intellectual rigor from strategists and policymakers when developing and assessing strategic options that avoid ill-conceived conflict between competing powers.
Matthew F. Smith is a U.S. Army officer. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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Header Image: Miniature U.S. and Chinese flags on a table before a meeting between then Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Chinese Adm. Wu Shengli, commander of the People's Liberation Army Navy, at the Pentagon, Sept. 11, 2013. (Sgt. Aaron Hostutler/DOD Photo)