For some time, it has been fashionable to discuss relations between the U.S. and China in the context of the “Thucydides Trap,” popularized by Harvard University’s Graham Allison. In a Financial Times column in 2012, Allison cited this line from Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable.” He singled out “rise” and “fear” as the operative elements in determining whether war between China and the U.S. can be avoided. The analysis has been referenced countless times since, including last month when China’s President Xi Jinping ...