Just after U.S. warships again made a provocative passage through the Taiwan Strait on Monday, further making already strained tensions between the Washington and Beijing — currently in the midst of a trade war — even hotter, Steve LeVine at Axios poses the question long on the Western public’s mind: what are the chances of a US-China war?

LeVine recently crossed paths with Graham Allison, who published his explosive “Destined For War: Can America And China Escape Thucydides Trap?” a year ago which detailed the reasons for a coming major war being all but inevitable, sparking a global debate about the Harvard professor’s controversial thesis. LeVine followed up with Allison in relation to the recent uptick in tensions in the region of the South China Sea:

He said, if history holds, the U.S. and China appeared headed toward war.

Over the weekend, I asked him for an update — specifically whether the danger of the two going to war seems to have risen.

“Yes,” he responded. The chance of war is still less than 50%, but “is real — and much more likely than is generally recognized.”

LeVine comments of Graham Allison’s central thesis, “Glued to a 2,400-year-old script, the U.S. and China seem to be on the same war-bound path that great powers have taken since Sparta fought upstart Athens.”

The reference is to the History of the Peloponnesian War, in which ancient Greek historian Thucydides told us the tale of a dominant regional power (Sparta) that felt threatened by the rise of a competing power (Athens).

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