The Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens. It is recounted by the historian Thucydides and is known as the “Thucydides Trap.” Thucydides’ work is not just a list of battles but an attempt to identify the causes and dynamics of a devastating, and perhaps avoidable, military conflict: moves and countermoves, all sensible in themselves, which nevertheless lead to a vortex of actions leading to war.
