Pearl Harbor and the fallacy of inevitable war: The Thucydides trap
More than 2,500 years ago, Greek historian Thucydides summed up the origin of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) in a single sentence: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable.”
I contemplated that last word — inevitable — during a recent visit to the Arizona battleship memorial at Pearl Harbor.
What Pearl Harbor Still Has to Teach Us
Thinking about Pearl Harbor and avoiding inevitable war, I recently revisited the solemn Arizona battleship memorial at Pearl Harbor while on a brief layover in Hawaii, after spending two enlightening weeks traveling deep within the complex Russian Far East.