Geopolitical tension looms over American politics, as was evident in last month’s debate when Kamala Harris claimed her rival “sold us out” to China. Though election rhetoric has heightened these tensions, headlines suggest the risk of war with China has been growing for years.

In 2022, the Chinese military launched missiles over Taiwan. Just this June, the Chinese coast guard injured a Filipino sailor going to resupply an outpost off the Philippines’ coast; on August 26, a Chinese military plane violated Japanese airspace for the first time, forcing Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to scramble aircraft. The numerous points of tension sometimes make war seem inevitable, leading experts like Harvard’s Graham Allison to wonder if the United States and China have fallen into a “Thucydides Trap.” The term refers to the tendency of a rising power to come into conflict with an established one. The term originates with the ancient Greek historian Thucydides’ claim that the rise of his native Athens made war with the longstanding might of Sparta inevitable. 

While empires old and new have collided many times since Thucydides wrote in the fifth century B.C., his History of the Peloponnesian War remains compelling because of how closely the tensions between fiercely democratic Athens and authoritarian Sparta resemble contemporary circumstances. In fact, today’s situation differs from Thucydides’ more than generally appreciated. However, reading his history of the war between Athens and Sparta (431–404 B.C.) closely, one can see that it nevertheless provides a compelling warning about the importance of political stability.

If the present situation risks reenacting Thucydides, the United States could easily play not only the Athenian role but also the Spartan. Even during the Cold War, observers were quick to link Americans with ancient Athenians, seeing both as grand experiments with self-government. While a sort of ancient politburo led Sparta, rambunctious debates characterized Athenian democracy, where all citizens met to argue and vote on laws. Where the Spartans left us the term “laconic”—the city of Sparta lay in a region called Laconia—because of their dislike of wordiness and complex ideas, Athens’ democracy gave rise to some of the first schools of rhetoric and political spin. If Sparta’s lack of open political discussion resembles modern communist parties, then Athenian democracy offers a cautionary example for Americans. 

Throughout the war with Sparta, tensions increased between Athenian elites suspicious of the common people’s political decision-making and a new breed of populist politicians whose vulgar behavior helped incite voters against the educated class. It’s hard not to see a resemblance between the elegant vitriol with which Thucydides himself damned the demagogue Cleon and the similar prose directed at Donald Trump in publications like The Atlantic and The Washington Post. 

Simmering internal tensions intensified Athenians’ inclination to attack other states, impose democracy, and strengthen the Athenian zone of influence. By the end of the war, unwanted Athenian interventions drove most Greeks to the Spartan side, leading to Athens’ eventual defeat and the (temporary) end of democratic rule.

But if the fate of Athenian democracy presents a necessary warning, contemporary America’s circumstances really resemble Sparta’s as much as Athens’. Like America, Sparta was an established power and the acknowledged leader of a sprawling alliance system. Like America, Sparta had a very inward-looking culture and was famously reluctant to go to war, such that her allies feared more that Sparta would not help them in need than that Sparta would coerce them directly.

Likewise, China bears some resemblance to Athens when it comes to international ties. Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s few friends, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the leaders of some Central Asian countries, resent him and are only driven into the Chinese ambit by a lack of choice. So, too, Athens’ exploitative behavior eventually left her bereft of allies save the few Greek cities that either bore a grudge against the Spartans or feared the threat of the Athenian navy. The most important secondary Greek powers, like Corinth and Thebes, appreciated Sparta’s stable leadership and feared Athens’ maritime aggression. Likewise, most Pacific states like Japan and the Philippines remain satisfied with America’s traditional role but worry about Xi’s ambitions and U.S. political stability.

Thucydides himself linked Athenian politicians’ mismanagement of foreign policy to the failure of Athens’ war effort. Although his history breaks off abruptly seven years before the end of the twenty-seven-year conflict, Thucydides leaves little room for doubt about its conclusion. In short, Athenian hubris attempted to expand the conflict to Syracuse while still embroiled in a protracted conflict with Sparta and her allies. More than the simple question of democracy or autocracy, Athens’ descent into political instability led her to attack her neighbors and alienate her few (potential) allies. 

Thucydides’ real prediction was not that the two powers inevitably would go to war, but that unstable politics would lead them to provoke it and ultimately ensure their own defeat. For Americans increasingly at each other’s throats, and for China’s dictator who launches constant purges of suspected rivals, Thucydides’ history warrants grave reflection. We may not yet have fallen into a real Thucydides Trap, but we are skirting its edge.

Jeffrey E. Schulman is a contributor for Young Voices and a PhD Student in Ancient History at Groningen University.

Image: U.S. Military/Creative Commons.