Thucydides: Graphic source, Wikipedia Commons
Thucydides, our embedded reporter, today reported that the real reason for initiation of the Peloponnesian War is the Chinese fear of the Americans and their increasing power.
Among the causes of hostility is the American claim to unilateral world leadership generally considered incompatible with the rights of individual states.
Fear of the power of the Americans and the universal world love of independence from outside control, then, were contributing factors to the Peloponnesian War.
Ok, so this is an historical leap of application but in the analogy presented here the U.S. is Athens and China is Sparta. There are enough surface similarities to make the comparison plausible as a thought experiment. Athens and the U.S. are democratic, aggressive, indulgent, and urbane; Sparta and China are authoritarian, imperialistic--and well, dare I suggest it, spartan obviously, and jingoistic.
But if a serious conflict ever came between the U.S. and China the historical fiction herein is possible for the reasons noted as Thucydides elaborated in his scientific history.
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