By Gavin Wilde
The so-called Thucydides Trap, popularized by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison, underscores the security dilemmas that arise from the contest between emerging and extant great powers. Drawing its central conceit from the ancient Greek historian Thucydides’ recounting of the cataclysmic war between Athens and Sparta, Allison’s framing postures China and the United States as the central protagonists in such a contest. However, this conceptual shortcut tends to neglect the substantial points of leverage that smaller, less powerful states have at their disposal. Whether by dint of inertia — or worse, calculated maneuver — this leverage can incentivize escalation and render broader conflict into an existential imperative. As tensions heat up around Ukraine and Taiwan, it is worth considering that small states can wield much more leverage than they get credit for, and larger powers neglect this fact at their own peril.
An overzealous young Serbian diplomat posted to the Russian capital of St. Petersburg in 1914 was emblematic of this fact. An underexamined figure who struck a pivotal note in the prelude to the Great War, Miroslav Spalajković showed a relative inexperience and overexuberance that were — far from being a detriment — key to securing Russian backing for Serbia. Spalajković spared no effort in convincing St. Petersburg of the strategic wisdom in such a move. Beyond mere allusions to the immorality of the opposing Austro-Hungarian Empire, Spalajković took great pains to outline to his benefactors how alliance simply made good practical sense — assuring Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Sazonov that Russia could count on Serbia “in any eventuality,” that Serbia would never “do anything against Russia’s will … and will patiently wait for the day of score-settling.” Serbia could be considered an appendage of the Russian forces, “our front … an extension of the Russian front.”
This piece was originally published in Newlines Magazine on February 1, 2022. Read more HERE.