Power Transition Theory Revisited in the 21st Century: What Can Ancient History Teach Us?

Power politics is back in the 21st century. It might not yet be as tragic as predicted by John Mearsheimer (2001) two decades ago, but the rule-based international order has been put to a test in the face of autocratic powers like China and Russia. But are we really witnessing a power transition at the summit of great powerhood as authors like Graham Allison (2018) have implied, and what would that look like? This paper aims to take a fresh look at the way we approach the relationship between China and the United States by delving into ancient past in order to show that power transitions are typically not as clear-cut as they sometimes appear. The Peloponnesian War remains the most widely theorized ancient example of power transition by IR scholars ever since Thomas Hobbes translated it from Greek into English (1629). Yet modern scholars are increasingly aware that the supposed power transition crisis between Athens and Sparta was the result of a mixture of both bipolar and multipolar interaction rather than structural bipolarity alone. This essay suggests that the potential power transition between China and the United States is unlikely to produce a violent clash cautioned by some analysts.