MAJOR GEN HARVIJAY SINGH, SENA MEDAL ,CORPS OF SIGNALS

Thucydides Trap, is a term popularized by American political scientist Graham T. Allison to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon. It was coined and is primarily used to describe a potential conflict between the United States and People’s Republic of China.
Are US and China going to War soon? The continued rhetoric in the South China sea makes one want to believe so. War, as we know it, however, is not expected. Economic and social conflict will escalate as China continues to challenge United States ‘global hegemony’. In the early twentieth century, Japan, riding high on victory in the Sino – Japanese and Russo – Japanese wars and with a growing sphere of influence in Korea and Taiwan, was bitten by the hegemonic bug…strong and powerful,
ready to bully oops, control others! Well, the premise of a prominent theory in International Relations (by Robert Gilpin and Stephen D. Krasner, among
others) is that a hegemonic power is necessary to develop and uphold a stable international political and economic order; westerners and their hegemonic ideas. As Japanese expansion, particularly into China, threatened the American-led “Open Door” order in the Pacific (equal
trade and investment opportunity), the United States became increasingly hostile toward Japan in the 1930s. The Thucydides Trap was sprung. The US sought to contain Japan by putting embargoes on its raw material imports,
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and rest is history. Moving ahead in time, on 7 Oct 2022, the US Govt imposed export control regulations to target China’s AI and Semiconductor Industry. Their aim appears to be contain Beijing’s technical and military ambitions; …….‘the trap’…..
has been sprung on China! The Post-Cold War world has come to an end, and there is an intense competition underway to shape what comes
next. At the heart of that competition is technology (at the heart of all modern technologies are semiconductors) Will China respond with war? The answer remains – War, as we know it, is not expected. What then would be China’s response? China can and will restrict US access to important rare earth metals that China controls. (Rare Earth Metals – a
collection of 17 elements that are valued for their conductive and magnetic properties) In Jul this year, Beijing imposed export controls on the strategic metals Gallium and Germanium, raising global fears that China could block exports of rare earths or processing technology next. Galleium and Germanium metals are used in high-speed computer chips and in the military and renewable energy sectors……………… a tit for tat?
While in the 20th Centuries, many wars were triggered by the Thucydides Trap, in the current era, perhaps the conflict will be more in the Grey Zone.
Getting back to Hegemony one last time, my interpretation is that Hegemonic Masculinity shapes the bullying behaviour in adolescent males, and it never goes away.