WOODRUFF: Are the United States and China
heading toward war?
It’s a theoretical question, but one with
its roots in the writings of an ancient Greek
historian.
In this latest addition to the NEWSHOUR bookshelf,
Margaret Warner talks to Professor Graham
Allison of Harvard University about his new
work, "Destined For War: Can America and China
Escape Thucydides's Trap?"
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARGARET WARNER, PBS NEWSHOUR CORRESPONDENT:
To what degree do you think the United States
and China fall into this trap that this historian
Thucydides set up 25 centuries ago?
PROFESSOR GRAHAM ALLISON, HARVARD UNIVERSITY:
I would say almost precisely.
Thucydides observed a competition between
Athens and Sparta, and wrote famously about
the rise of Athens and the fear that this
instilled in Sparta.
So, when a rising power threatens to displace
a ruling power, in general, bad things happen.
In this case, we see almost a prototypical
rising power in China, which is restoring
-- being restored, as some think of it, to
its natural place at the center of the universe,
and is the dominant power.
And no ruling power has ever been sure that
it belongs as number one than the USA.
So, I would say, this is an almost perfect
lucidity dynamic, and I think we're seeing
the syndrome in both cases, and the behavior
of both parties.
WARNER: You call about the ruling power syndrome
and the rising power syndrome.
The sort of habit of mind that takes place.
ALLISON: So the rising power thinks: I’ve
become bigger.
I’ve become stronger.
My interests deserve more weight.
I deserve more say.
I deserve more sway.
The current arrangements are confining because
they were set in place when I didn't really
matter.
So, things should be adjusted.
And the ruling power thinks: the status quo
is terrific, in which I’m the ruling power
and you're a lesser power.
And the status quo has been so effective,
it provides an order that's allowed you to
grow up, to become big and strong.
So, if you look at companies, when you have
an incumbent and disruptive upstart, Uber
versus the taxi industry, or Google and Apple
versus established industry -- generally what
happens in this, is both of the parties, each,
almost to the fact, act out this syndrome.
And you can certainly see this in the U.S.,
thinking: Wait a minute.
China, as President Trump said, is eating
our breakfast, eating our lunch, eating our
dinners, all everywhere.
And China thinking: The U.S. is trying to
keep us down.
WARNER: What role does the -- do the sort
of personalities, temperaments, governing
styles of the leaders play in this?
ALLISON: Well, they can be substantial.
And I think, I look at the last 500 years.
I find 16 cases which a rising power threatens
to displace a major ruling power.
Twelve of them end in war, four of them not
in war.
We take a war case, which is particularly
instructive, World War I.
Now, how could the assassination of an archduke,
who otherwise nobody cared much about, in
Sarajevo by a Serbian terrorist, have produced
a spark that created a fire that burned down
the whole house of Europe?
So devastating, that by the end of the war,
historians had to invent a whole new category,
World War.
I mean, it seems incredible, but Germany had
risen great fear in Britain.
Germany was being ruled by the kaiser.
The kaiser, as Bismarck said about it, is
like a balloon fluttering in the wind on the
end of a string.
And if anybody ever let go of the string,
which they did, watch out.
Each of the parties distrust the other hugely.
Everything each other does is misinterpreted.
External events can have impacts that would
otherwise be inconsequential.
The role that the leaders play can be very
important.
And in the German case, Germany versus Britain,
the kaiser is a particularly instructive case.
WARNER: President Bush and President Obama
have worked very hard with the Chinese.
The Chinese leader, President Xi, has even
talked about avoiding the Thucydides trap.
So, given all of that, is it inextricable?
ALLISON: It's not inextricable.
And if, God forbid, we find ourselves in a
war with China in the next year, or several
years, leaders will not be able to blame some
iron law of history.
But if we look at what's happening on the
North Korean peninsula today, that's the fastest
path to war.
Not a war China wants, not a war the U.S.
wants.
But if the only way to stop Kim Jong-un from
testing ICBMs that can deliver nuclear warheads
against San Francisco and Los Angeles is to
attack them, President Trump has said he's
going to do that.
And if the U.S. attacks North Korea in order
to prevent this test, it's quite possible,
that will be a trigger to what will ultimately
end in a war between the U.S. and China.
So, I think it's extremely dangerous.
WARNER: What can these two powers do now to
avoid that track?
ALLISON: What you would wish and hope, is
that there was like adult supervision.
Now, of course, we know in international affairs,
there's not adult supervision.
It's an anarchy and there's nobody on top
of Xi Jinping or Donald Trump.
But if they should sit down and just say,
let's for a moment, stand back from the situation.
We -- neither of us want war, there's a little
pipsqueak country between us that's taking
actions that may drag the two of us somewhere
where we don't want to go.
Let's think about it and look at it.
And apart from the Thucydidian dynamic, apart
from the fact that there's zero level of trust
between the two parties, because when the
Chinese look at this situation, they think,
well, you shouldn't even be in the Korean
peninsula.
If you weren't there, there wouldn't be a
problem.
And we look and say, Korea's one of the most
successful countries in the world.
It's really a poster child of the post-World
War II project to build a new international
order.
It's a democracy, market economy, so we think
we need to be there.
But you would wish that people would still
stand back and say, look, war would be catastrophic.
We should become much more imaginative about
willing to adapt and adjust in order to find
a way around this.
WARNER: So, in making adjustments, is it the
United States that's going to have to make
more adjustments?
ALLISON: I would say both parties would have
to make very substantial adjustments, but
historically, the ruling power has to make
more painful adjustments than the rising power.
WARNER: Graham Allison, author of "Destined
For War: Can America and China Avoid the Thucydides's
Trap?"
Thank you so much.
ALLISON: Thanks for having me.
