The Ibn Khaldûn Trap and Great Power Competition with China

Abstract

The return of great power rivalry has been the defining feature of the 21st century. Since the beginning of the new millennium, China and Russia have openly defied the United States and upset the stability of the liberal international order. Both China and Russia share physical and material attributes possessed by the United States that are traditionally required for great power status: land mass, a sea portal, a large population, and technology to field and develop a competitive military capability. Most scholars and policymakers agree that China presents the largest challenge to US interests and the US-led liberal international order. Economic and military growth in China has been astounding, surpassing Russian expansion. China’s outward extension is not primarily resource-based as is Russia’s but multidimensional, posing a structural challenge to US military and economic dominance. Much ink has been spilled over the nature of US-China rivalry and whether the two great powers are destined for war. Structural factors figure prominently when predicting US-China relations. A famous deadly Greek trap describes how the fear of a hegemonic power sparks catastrophic war with a rising power. In the History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides writes, “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.” Thucydides’ statement has been widely adopted as a metaphor for the dangers associated with great-power transition. Both A.F.K. Organski’s power transition theory and Robert Gilpin’s realism see great-power wars as