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Kurt's avatar

Cut and pasted from Zhang Weiying's recent piece on the stimulus...

"I must stress that the currently widespread "Thucydides Trap" mindset is a profoundly destructive notion that could mislead the country. We must free ourselves from this intellectual constraint. The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), a conflict between the Athenian and Spartan alliances, was not the inevitable result of the rise of a new power, as Thucydides claimed. The war was not inevitable or natural. Instead, it resulted from political leaders' arrogance, resentment, and vengeance-driven attitudes and their ignorance, misjudgments, and third-party provocations. Athens’ excessive greed and unrealistic goals ultimately led to its catastrophic failure in the war.

Donald Kagan, a Yale University scholar, conducted in-depth research on the Peloponnesian War. He found that the politicians involved lacked foresight, mistakenly believing they could achieve significant gains at low costs. They relied on past experiences to craft strategies without adequately accounting for the risks of misjudgments and miscalculations, nor did they prepare contingency plans. Thus, the war's outbreak was neither inevitable nor the result of irresistible forces; it arose from specific decisions made in a particular context.

Similarly, I believe that our current and future international environment depends on our choices and actions."

It's a good read over at Pekingnology....

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Kurt's avatar

Thanks for this. I was never able to get more than halfway through Allisons's idiotic take on the matter. I'm American, living in Wuhan, not an academic in any form, married to a Professor of Chinese History at a national university. My study of China history came through the back door, so to speak. My interest in the person sparked a fascination with the topic, and here I am. I spend most of my time traveling in country. Traveling in China is immersing oneself in its history.

I'll be watching for more.

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