During the Peloponnesian War, Sparta was the dominant power of the region and Athens was an emerging force. The Athenian historian Thucydides believed that this shift in power had made the war unavoidable, "it was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this inspired in Sparta, that made war inevitable.” Since this time, this phenomenon has been called “Thucydides Trap” and it has been used to describe historical trends of conflict on an international scale. In this episode, Drew and Alex discuss this theory and turn it into an analysis of conflicts over the last 500 years. They also relate this theory back to current tensions between the United States and China. Does "Thucydides Trap” prove that a hot war between the U.S. and China is almost inevitable? Or have globalism and interdependence made this nearly impossible?