China's Rise Doesn't Mean War

Thucydides famously attributed the Peloponnesian War to the rise in power of Athens and the fear it created in Sparta. A century ago, Germany's rise and the fear it created in Britain helped cause World War I. Now, it's become a new conventional wisdom in some circles that China's rise and the fear it is creating in the United States -- where recent polls show 60 percent believe the country is in decline -- could doom the 21st century to a similar fate. As scholar John Mearsheimer has put it, China's rise cannot be peaceful. One should be skeptical about such dire projections. Americans go through cycles of declinism every decade or so, but that tells us more about America's psychology than its power resources.