修昔底德陷阱 Thucydides's Trap

川普訪華後，美中關係究竟會如何發展，這成為了美國思想界和政策界近日廣泛討論的話題。談及美中關係，人們往往會提到“修昔底德陷阱”。也就是新興上升大國必然要挑戰守成大國，而守成大國也必然會回應這種威脅，於是戰爭變得不可避免。進入川習時代，美中能否逃離這種宿命？帶著這個問題，美國之音記者平章在不久前對“修昔底德陷阱”這一術語的提出者，哈佛大學貝爾弗科學與國際事務中心前主任，也是美國著名的國家安全與外交政策專家格雷厄姆▪埃里森進行了專訪。

Is war between China and the US inevitable? - Graham Allison Oct 30, 2018

Taking lessons from a historical pattern called "Thucydides's Trap," political scientist Graham Allison shows why a rising China and a dominant United States could be headed towards a violent collision no one wants -- and how we can summon the common sense and courage to avoid it.

The reason is Thucydides’s Trap, a deadly pattern of structural stress that results when a rising power challenges a ruling one. This phenomenon is as old as history itself. About the Peloponnesian War that devastated ancient Greece, the historian Thucydides explained: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Over the past 500 years, these conditions have occurred sixteen times. War broke out in twelve of them. Today, as an unstoppable China approaches an immovable America and both Xi Jinping and Donald Trump promise to make their countries “great again,” the seventeenth case looks grim. Unless China is willing to scale back its ambitions or Washington can accept becoming number two in the Pacific, a trade conflict, cyberattack, or accident at sea could soon escalate into all-out war.