Fuses, Chains, and Backlashes - China, the United States, and the Dynamics of Conflict Contagion and Escalation

Fuses, Chains, and Backlashes analyzes the factors and processes that have historically ignited wars among the great powers and applies the resulting insights to examine the potential for contemporary Sino-American competition to flare into conflict. Distinguished political scientist Steve Chan emphasizes the importance of considering multiple enabling conditions for system-level conflict, including power shifts, armament races, alliance dynamics, and enduring rivalries. But these conditions in themselves do not always lead to war. Chan introduces the idea of a catalyst--or fuse--that ignites the combustible mixture produced by these variables'' interactions. By analyzing possible causal pathways to interstate war and applying this historical, empirical context to the present-day relationship between the US and China, Chan hopes to help us learn from the past and avoid future catastrophe.