Word.ws English Dictionary

Thucydides trap

/θjuːˈsɪdɪdiːz tɹæp/

Thucydides trap noun: an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon.

Noun

Thucydides trap (plural Thucydides traps)

  1. An apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon.
    • Even if a rising superpower (China) and a relatively declining superpower (the US) are not fated to fall into the “Thucydides trap” and go to war, periods of great power shifts almost invariably bring increased international tensions.2025 May 10, Timothy Garton Ash, “Brace for disorder as the great global power shifts again”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 9

Forms of Thucydides trap

pluralThucydides traps
alternative formThucydides' trap

Origin of Thucydides trap

An allusion to the ancient Athenian historian and military general Thucydides, who posited that the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta had been inevitable because of Spartan fears of the growth of Athenian power. Coined by American political scientist Graham T. Allison.

Questions about Thucydides trap

What does Thucydides trap mean?
Thucydides trap means an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon.
What part of speech is Thucydides trap?
Thucydides trap is a noun.
How do you pronounce Thucydides trap?
Thucydides trap is pronounced /θjuːˈsɪdɪdiːz tɹæp/.
What is the plural of Thucydides trap?
The plural of Thucydides trap is Thucydides traps.

Words near Thucydides trap in the dictionary

  1. thucholitic
  2. thuck
  3. Thucydidean
  4. Thucydideans
  5. Thucydides
  6. Thucydides trap
  7. Thucydides traps
  8. Thucydidesian
  9. Thucydidian
  10. thud
  11. thud and blunder

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Thucydides trap (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Thucydides trap.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thucydides_trap. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.