It’s hard to believe that China’s economy was less than half of the United States in 2004. Yet today, China’s purchasing power has left America playing catch-up. That dramatic shift is just one of the flashpoints Graham Allison says may lure both nations into what he calls “Thucydides’s Trap,” an inevitable trajectory toward a dangerous conflict.
Allison’s bestselling book, Destined for War, explores the factors fueling a diplomatic tug of war that could ignite into war. With a significant increase in China’s military spending over the past decade and the People’s Liberation Army boasting nearly a million more active service members than the U.S., President Xi Jinping’s pledge to return China to a superpower status isn’t quiet bravado.
Allison’s warning is honed from his years as a leading U.S. national security and defense policy analyst. Up until July 2017, he spent more than 20 years as director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, with particular expertise in nuclear weaponry, terrorism and decision-making. As Assistant Secretary of Defense during the first Clinton administration, Allison received the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service for “reshaping relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to reduce the former Soviet nuclear arsenal.”
It’s hard to believe that China’s economy was less than half of the United States in 2004. Yet today, China’s purchasing power has left America playing catch-up. That dramatic shift is just one of the flashpoints Graham Allison says may lure both nations into what he calls “Thucydides’s Trap,” an inevitable trajectory toward a dangerous conflict.
Allison’s bestselling book, Destined for War, explores the factors fueling a diplomatic tug of war that could ignite into war. With a significant increase in China’s military spending over the past decade and the People’s Liberation Army boasting nearly a million more active service members than the U.S., President Xi Jinping’s pledge to return China to a superpower status isn’t quiet bravado.
Allison’s warning is honed from his years as a leading U.S. national security and defense policy analyst. Up until July 2017, he spent more than 20 years as director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, with particular expertise in nuclear weaponry, terrorism and decision-making. As Assistant Secretary of Defense during the first Clinton administration, Allison received the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service for “reshaping relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to reduce the former Soviet nuclear arsenal.”
It’s hard to believe that China’s economy was less than half of the United States in 2004. Yet today, China’s purchasing power has left America playing catch-up. That dramatic shift is just one of the flashpoints Graham Allison says may lure both nations into what he calls “Thucydides’s Trap,” an inevitable trajectory toward a dangerous conflict.
Allison’s bestselling book, Destined for War, explores the factors fueling a diplomatic tug of war that could ignite into war. With a significant increase in China’s military spending over the past decade and the People’s Liberation Army boasting nearly a million more active service members than the U.S., President Xi Jinping’s pledge to return China to a superpower status isn’t quiet bravado.
Allison’s warning is honed from his years as a leading U.S. national security and defense policy analyst. Up until July 2017, he spent more than 20 years as director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, with particular expertise in nuclear weaponry, terrorism and decision-making. As Assistant Secretary of Defense during the first Clinton administration, Allison received the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service for “reshaping relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to reduce the former Soviet nuclear arsenal.”
WHEN
WHERE
TICKET INFO
