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Am at a geopol confab in Delphi Greece 🇬🇷 where Pythia - the Oracle of Delphi in the basement of the great temple 🏛️- was always consulted by Athens, Sparta and other Greek cities before taking a major policy action or starting a war. If Trump had consulted her she would have warned him to take it more slowly and not to confront powerful China like a bully lest yo end up in the current Thucydides Trap where the trade war with China may become a full scale economic war with a unmanaged , destructive and disorderly decoupling and where a Cold War that is becoming colder may even end up in a hot war on Taiwan! If current tariffs on China remain its exports to the US will implode. Then, the main non-military deterrent to China forcibly taking over Taiwan - loss of trade to the US and broader tech and financial sanctions - will vanish and thus Xi may as well take over Taiwan as both deterrent carrots and sticks are gone. So this is a dangerous slippery slope and tit-for- tat escalation where a trade war becomes an economic containment cold war that then leads to a real hot war! Thucydides told us the tale of rising Athens clashing with established power Sparta . Today China is the new Athens and US is the new Sparta. Will we avoid the Thucydides trap as hoped by @GrahamTAllison Allison? The Avoidable War of @MrKRudd may become the unavoidable one as disorderly decoupling is a prologue to an actual war! 🇨🇳 🇹🇼 🇺🇸