The biggest Thucydides Trap wars were WW1 and WW2, which happened specifically as Britain (the first major power to industrialize) lost its hegemony over industrialization and faced competition from Germany, Russia, Japan, the US, etc. Thirty years of some of the most brutal war the world has ever seen followed, which only ended with the U.S. re-establishing hegemony because it was the only one whose homeland hadn't been bombed into oblivion.

You're right that there have been no great-power wars in the last 80 years. That's about the timescale at which major hegemonic realignments occur: WW1/WW2 from 1914-1945 (England -> US), Napoleonic Wars from 1803-1815 (England -> France -> England), Nine Years War + Glorious Revolution + War of Spanish Succession from 1688-1715 (France -> England), European Wars of Religion from 1618-1648 which created the nation-state system.

But that just means that this is the first major hegemonic realignment after the development of nuclear weapons and drone swarms, which makes me fear for the survival of civilization a bit.

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jopsen 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Fall of the Soviet union was also a major hegemonic realignment.

I don't know I have some hopes that maybe it'll play out more with economic tools.

Oh, and I don't think western alliances and trade relationships necessarily need to collapse. But Trump certainly tries :(

	▲	nostrademons 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To some extent yes, but the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact was never really as threatening as western propaganda made it seem. In basically all metrics that matter - population, GDP, military spending, technological advancement, etc. - the eastern bloc was a distant second to NATO. That makes its collapse far less disruptive to the world order than when the former hegemon falls.