Publisher’s Analysis
In 2017, an article in The Atlantic titled “The Summer of Misreading Thucydides” argued that policymakers were simplifying the ancient historian’s lessons for modern geopolitics. The piece warned that invoking the so-called “Thucydides Trap”—the idea that a rising power inevitably clashes with an established one—reduced a complex historical analysis to a convenient slogan. That critique was well made. Thucydides did not formulate a deterministic law of international relations.
Yet nearly a decade later, revisiting the argument may be worthwhile—not because the critique was wrong, but because the geopolitical landscape has revealed dynamics that sharpen the question.
The Thucydides Trap may therefore not primarily be about the rise of a new power. It may instead be about the moment when a rising power acquires the ability to constrain the strategic autonomy of the incumbent.
History’s most dangerous transitions occur not merely when power shifts—but when dependencies emerge. Today’s geopolitical competition increasingly revolves around precisely such dependencies.
Revisiting Thucydides
To understand why the concept continues to resonate, it helps to recall who Thucydides was. Thucydides was an Athenian general and historian who fought in the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BCE. After failing to prevent the Spartan capture of the strategic city of Amphipolis, he was exiled from Athens. During his exile, he wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, a work that remains one of the earliest and most influential analyses of power politics and strategic decision-making.
The modern idea of the “Thucydides Trap” was popularized by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison in his 2017 book Destined for War. Drawing on a famous line from Thucydides—“It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable”—Allison argued that when a rising power threatens to displace an established one, the resulting fear and structural tension often—though not inevitably—lead to conflict.
Despite Allison’s careful analysis, the concept is frequently misunderstood. Thucydides himself did not describe an iron law of geopolitics. His history is far more nuanced, emphasizing misjudgment, political pressures, alliance dynamics, and leadership failures. War, in his account, emerges not from structural inevitability alone but from an interaction of fear, ambition, and human decision-making.
Seen this way, the deeper lesson may not simply be that rising powers trigger conflict. It may be that states react most strongly when they perceive that their strategic autonomy could be squeezed. That possibility increasingly defines the current geopolitical moment.
Power in the 21st Century: Supply Chains, Not Armies
In classical geopolitics, power was measured in armies and territory. In the 21st century, power increasingly resides in supply chains, industrial ecosystems, and technological chokepoints.
Few examples illustrate this shift more clearly than rare earth elements. Rare earths are essential inputs for modern technologies—from electric vehicles and wind turbines to semiconductors, smartphones, and advanced defense systems. Over decades, China deliberately built dominance across this supply chain. Today it controls the overwhelming majority of the world’s rare-earth refining capacity, giving it a pivotal role in the processing stage that turns mined materials into usable industrial inputs. Bloomberg analyses estimate that up to 90 percent of refined rare earths are controlled by China.
This dominance did not emerge by accident. It was the result of decades of industrial policy, strategic investment, and the willingness to absorb environmental and economic costs that other countries avoided.
The outcome is a structural asymmetry: advanced economies depend heavily on Chinese refining capacity—a reality widely understood among policymakers and analysts. Asymmetry creates leverage—and leverage invites strategy.
The Illusion of the “AI Race”
For much of the past decade, geopolitical discussions have framed technological competition as a race—especially in artificial intelligence. Who will develop the most advanced models? Who will dominate semiconductor manufacturing? Who will define the architecture of the digital economy?
China itself framed the issue in similar terms. In its 2018 national strategy, Beijing declared its ambition to become the world leader in artificial intelligence by 2030. Observers at the time often dismissed this as aspirational rhetoric. Yet nearly a decade later, the trajectory appears far more realistic than many initially assumed.
Still, the metaphor of a race may itself be misleading. A race implies a finish line. Geopolitics, however, resembles something closer to an infinite game—a contest in which the objective is not to win once but to remain competitive indefinitely. From this perspective, control over industrial inputs and technological infrastructure may matter more than leadership in any single innovation cycle.
Artificial intelligence does not exist in isolation. It requires enormous computing infrastructure, semiconductor supply chains, vast energy resources, and access to specialized materials. If one country controls critical parts of those systems, the contest is no longer simply about innovation. It becomes about structural dependency.
This becomes particularly visible when looking at the physical infrastructure underlying artificial intelligence. Advanced AI systems require vast data centers, specialized semiconductors, and enormous amounts of electricity. The production of these chips depends on an intricate global supply chain involving highly specialized manufacturing equipment, rare materials, and concentrated industrial capabilities. What appears to be a competition in algorithms is therefore also a competition in industrial ecosystems. Control over key nodes in these systems—from semiconductor fabrication to critical minerals and energy supply—can translate into strategic leverage that shapes the trajectory of technological development itself.
Energy: China’s Strategic Pivot
China’s leadership has long understood another vulnerability: energy. China remains one of the world’s largest importers of oil, much of which must travel through vulnerable maritime routes. In response, Beijing has pursued a proactive strategy to reduce this dependency.
Over the past two decades, China has invested heavily in electrification, renewable energy, and large-scale electricity generation. The country now produces far more electricity than either the United States or the European Union, reflecting both its industrial scale and its strategic push toward energy diversification.
The rise of electric vehicles and renewable infrastructure is therefore not merely environmental policy. It is also a geopolitical strategy. Electrification allows China to substitute imported hydrocarbons with domestically generated energy. Reducing oil dependence means reducing strategic vulnerability.
The Strait of Hormuz Problem
Yet the transition remains incomplete. China’s industrial system still relies heavily on imported oil, and a significant portion of that oil travels through one of the world’s most strategically sensitive chokepoints: the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly 40 percent of the oil passing through the strait ultimately flows toward China.
The geography of supply adds another layer of complexity. Some of the world’s largest oil exporters—including Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Iran—occupy regions historically intertwined with U.S. geopolitical influence and security arrangements.
In other words, China’s industrial economy still depends on supply routes that the United States and its allies have long possessed the capacity to influence.
Strategy in Motion
Seen from this perspective, recent geopolitical developments appear less like random escalation and more like a contest over strategic chokepoints. China has accumulated leverage through industrial ecosystems—rare earth processing, battery supply chains, manufacturing clusters, and increasingly sophisticated technological capabilities.
The United States, by contrast, has historically maintained leverage through global finance, maritime security, and energy systems.
Each side therefore holds leverage the other cannot easily replace. Both are now attempting the same thing: reducing vulnerabilities faster than the other.
China seeks technological self-sufficiency and energy diversification. The United States is rebuilding domestic supply chains, strengthening alliances around critical minerals, and rediscovering industrial policy.
This process is not yet a fully crystallized strategy. It is something more dynamic: strategy emerging through ongoing operations. As military planners know well, strategy rarely survives first contact with reality. And that is where geopolitics currently stands.
Revisiting the Trap
If the past decade was the summer of misreading Thucydides, the present moment may represent something different: a winter of revisiting him. Not to rediscover an iron law of rising powers—but to better understand how fear, dependency, and strategic leverage shape the choices states make when they believe their freedom of action is at risk.
Yet the same dynamics that create pressure can also create something else: mutual constraint.
Once strategic dependencies exist on both sides, the logic of geopolitics may gradually shift. The contest may no longer revolve around who can squeeze the other most effectively, but around how far such pressure can be applied without triggering destabilizing consequences for both.
At that point, the trap Thucydides described might lead not only to confrontation—but also to negotiation. Not because rivalry disappears, but because both sides may ultimately seek to shape rules and systems that allow competition to continue without undermining the foundations of growth.
In that sense, the challenge may not be to escape the trap entirely—but to manage it.
