Related Publications


Articles by Graham Allison

How Trump and China’s Xi could stumble into war
Graham Allison  | The Washington Post | April 2017

  • Previewing the first meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping, Graham Allison writes that "more important than any specific deliverables from their summit will be whether the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations recognize the risks as far as any eye can see. If they settle for business as usual, we are likely to get history as usual – where the odds of war are against us."

“The Thucydides Trap: Are the US and China Headed for War?”
Graham Allison  | The Atlantic | September 2015

  • Published two years before Destined for War, this essay presented Graham Allison's core argument that the Thucydides's Trap provides the best lens available for illuminating relations between China and the US today.

"Establish a White House Council of Historical Advisers Now"
Graham Allison & Niall Ferguson | Belfer Center Applied History Project | October 2016

  • In this 'manifesto' for Applied History, Allison and Niall Ferguson argue that the US could avoid future disasters if policy makers started looking more to the past. This article—and the companion piece published by The Atlantic—describe the discipline of Applied History, which is the foundation of the Belfer Center's efforts to examine historical precedents and analogs to the US-China challenge.

Belfer Center reports

The Future of US-China Relations Under Xi Jinping
Kevin Rudd | Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | April 2015

  • Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd presents his findings from a major study he led at the Belfer Center on the possibilities and impacts of a new strategic relationship between the US and China. Rudd describes how the future relationship between the two countries is one of the mega-changes and mega-challenges of our age.

2015 Military Reform in the People’s Republic of China
Andrei Kokoshin | Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | October 2016

  • Kokoshin, Russia's foremost expert on the Chinese military, details the "unprecedented scale and depth" of China's recent military reform and describes the expected impact of the reform on Chinese foreign policy.

Overcoming the Great Recession: Lessons from China
Liu He | Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | July 2014

  • Authored by Xi Jinping's right-hand man on economic policy, this report offers critical insights into the Chinese perspective on the Great Recession. In the aftershocks of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, Liu led a research team that prepared an analysis of earlier financial crises to provide guidance for the Chinese government’s response. "Overcoming the Great Recession" makes their findings available in English, offering analysis that provoked important discussion and debate in the wider policy-related community.

Belfer Center Studies in International Security books

Fragile Rise: Grand Strategy and the Fate of Imperial Germany, 18711914
Xu Qiyu | MIT Press | 2017

  • In Fragile Rise, Xu Qiyu offers a Chinese perspective on the course of German grand strategy in the decades before World War I. Xu's account demonstrates that better strategy and statesmanship could have made a difference—for Germany and Europe— and his analysis offers important lessons for the leaders of China and other countries.

The Next Great War? The Roots of World War I and the Risk of US-China Conflict
Richard Rosecrance and Steven Miller, eds. | MIT Press | 2014

  • In The Next Great War?, experts reconsider the causes of World War I and explore whether the great powers of the twenty-first century can avoid the mistakes of Europe’s statesmen in 1914 and prevent another catastrophic conflict. They find differences as well as similarities between today’s world and the world of 1914—but conclude that only a deep understanding of those differences and early action to bring great powers together will likely enable the United States and China to avoid a great war.

Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World
Graham Allison, Robert Blackwill, Ali Wyne | MIT Press | 2013

  • When Lee Kuan Yew speaks, presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, and CEOs listen.This best-selling book gathers key insights from interviews, speeches, and Lee's voluminous published writings and presents them in an engaging question and answer format. Lee offers his assessment of China's future, offers the US strategic advice for dealing with China, and goes on to discuss India's future, Islamic terrorism, economic growth, geopolitics and globalization, and democracy.