The Thucydides Trap Summary

Over the course of two world wars the U.S learned a bitter lesson. That “taking… shelter across the sea.” (Ronald). will not bring victory or security to the citizens that the government is sworn to protect. Reagan realizes this, but the idea of becoming the world's watcher for tyrannical governments and threats seems daunting too even the most powerful of countries.

It is no doubt that the Monroe Doctrine has become a staple in the study of American foreign policy. Since the establishment of the nation, America’s role in foreign policy has been questioned and under constant scrutiny. In his Farewell Address, George Washington warned of foreign entanglement. Stemming from Washington’s warning to Monroe’s doctrine – a disagreement has grown, what is the American role in the World. It was President James Monroe’s doctrine that ushered in a new belief for America’s role.

Imperialism drove the world, from the Roman Empire, to America in the early 1900’s. The US imperialized nations to give them peace, gain their natural resources, and protect them. But not all things imperialism are good. When the US imperialized some nations, it limited their ability to govern and protect themselves. But the US has more experience doing so in a modern world, and would ultimately benefit them.

Western mass media propaganda claim China is expansionist and Russia is a threat to world peace. The excuse is that China might close international shipping lanes in the South China Islands sea dispute. Russia might invade Europe and Iran might develop a nuclear weapon. The excuses become predictions, and the predictions replace facts. Just as the British Empire and Soviet Union collapsed, a belligerent United States is also now in a position where it can no longer police the world without consensus.

A Modern Day Imperial Power Presently, the presence of injustice, disorder, and poverty are all problems demanding a need for an active imperial power to solve them. Throughout the past two centuries, America has emerged as a capable modern day imperial power. As an imperial power, America has the ability to spread its economic, cultural and military influence internationally, majority of which benefits foreign nations. Likewise, imperialism is a widespread concept amongst existing and rising imperial powers due to the beneficial impacts it has on everyone—for example, economical, political, military, growth and cultural benefits. America’s ascent in strength and power was driven and motivated this imperialistic interest for everyone, having grown to become one of the most strongest forces in the world, it is a moral responsibility for America to aid less fortunate nations and people.

Plagues have often afflicted the world and caused tremendous death throughout societies. Two of the most famous plagues in world history occurred in the years 431 and 552 BCE. These plagues were recorded by historians so as to not forget the tragic toll they played throughout the world. The two historians were Thucydides and Procopius. Thucydides, a historian of Greek tradition, became a victim of a plague brought on by war and documented the plague in Athens and Sparta.

Weapons of the Cold War Two overly powerful sides never get along with each other. After World War II, the United States and Soviet Union’s alliance broke down as they both became the most powerful countries in the world, therefore, the Cold War started. “Weapon” is anything that causes damage and harms. Weapons used in Cold War were not all physical deadly weapon, but they were indeed powerful weapons in the form of technology, alliances, and psychological influences.

The historian Thucydides described himself as a wealthy Athenian general whose exile to the Peloponnese allowed him to personally observe, from both the sides of the conflict, a comprehensive account of the Peloponnesian War. Book 1 in Thucydides’ “History of the Peloponnesian War” is dedicated to explaining over fifty years of the events and proceedings that led to the abandonment of the Thirty Year’s Peace and subsequent war. In Book 1 he identifies four main incidents, which I shall refer to as ‘grievances’, regarding the conduct of Athens towards both their Delian members and the Peloponnesian allies. Yet he also mentions what he deems to be a more ‘real’ truth than these four grievances that led to Sparta and the Peloponnese going to

The 20th century would represent a great turning point in global affairs, greatly influencing US foreign policy. Both World War I and World War II were instrumental in the evolution of US foreign policy. Prior to WWI, the US was relatively uninvolved in global affairs at large, engaging in wars when necessary of course, but for the most part abided by George Washington’s famous warning against entangling foreign alliances. This isolationist stance would be apparent even through World War I and leading up to World War II, but various factors, such as the threat of the communist USSR, contributed to radically alter this isolationist stance to a much more involved foreign policy committed to the containment of communism. While US isolation was

The First Punic War was the first of three wars between the two powers as they wrestled for dominance in the region. The first war began due to a dispute between Syracuse and Messina on the strategically important island of Sicily, Rome came to the aid of Messina which outraged Carthage who quickly sided with Syracuse and so began over a century of intermittent fighting between the great powers. In conclusion, it is so interesting to see so many similarities and so many differences between the two mighty empires and it is fascinating to examine how many parallels can be drawn between ancient civilizations and ones in modern times; for example, the Cold War between the Soviet Union and The West, which had the world on the brink of nuclear war. Today Russia and America flex their might and fight proxy wars to express their dominance as superpowers. The empires of Rome and Carthage fell, so too did the Soviet Union, but it seems that the modern superpowers do not learn from the mistakes of the

The transition of power in China changed the dynamics of post-World War II relations. For the United States, the so-called “Loss of China” was a a catastrophe, not only because the US supported Chiang Kai-shek in the last few years, but also because it seems to be a victory for the Soviet Union and the global Communism. For China, in 1949 started for the first time in its history the possibility to build foreign relations without being “suppressed by unequal treaties” by western powers. But China‘s relations to other countries remained very complicated and complex.

The first great-war shattered the human mind so profound that out of its aftermaths’ emerged a fresh discipline (in 1919 at the University of Whales known to us as International Relations) proposed to prevent war. “It was deemed by the scholars that the study of International Politics shall find the root cause of the worlds political problems and put forward solutions to help politicians solve them” (Baylis 2014:03). International Relations happened to play the role of a ‘correcting-mechanism’ restoring the world order of peace and amity by efforting at its best to maintain the worlds’ status quo. However with the emergence of a second world war much more massive that the first put at stake all the values of that young discipline of IR. The

After the Perl Harbor attacks in the US economy grew rapidly along with its preparedness and military power as the country was pushed to coming with creative means to outwit its opponents. The political institutions in the US also play an important role by distributing power equally and control how the power is exercised for the benefit of the society. The other advantages, the US has over its rival is the higher income per capital. In spite of these benefits, China is putting a lot of its resources into science and technology. Its economic institutions are also better reformed and it is offering some firms and farmers crucial incentives to help the economy stay on the

So the question is: The ‘Age of War’: will it end or endure? My argument is that, the ‘Age of War’ will never end and conflicts will only endure. Conflicts are changing in their nature (dynamics, conflict actors, complexity, scale, etc.) but they still will pre-vail. To support my argument, we will initially look at the types of the conflicts, their causes and intensity in the past sixty years and will explore in more details one of the dominant reasons for conflicts – fighting for natural resources.

We’ve been able to maintain a very close relationship with the United States, which has been fundamental to our security, while at the same time we’ve also been able to develop a very close economic relationship with China, which has transformed us economically. However for Australia, these arrangements are becoming increasingly difficult as the strategic rivalry between the US and China in Asia escalates. This is largely because Australia has no other model from which we can base our foreign policy, on either the economy or security. Australia doesn't have good vision for the future which doesn't presuppose that we can maintain our China-US relationship with relative ease. Economically, we see our economic future very closely tied to continuing selling more and more goods to China, and we don't have another model of Australia’s economy.