Good afternoon. I am the senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow and codirector at the center for International Security cooperation here at stanford. We are delighted that both institutions have come together to cohost this book event with Graham Allison and Neil Ferguson to discuss the book. Its available for purchase outside and he will stay f you copies so you cant escape the trap of the bookstore outside. Now, Graham Allison, he is director of Harvard Center and the Douglas Dylan professor of government and founding dean of Harvard School of government. Like legions of students, i vividly remember my first time walking into the Kennedy School for my first form event back in 1986. It was an intoxicating place where you could feel the brainpower working in the policy being changed in the room. Bram allison has been behind this magic for a very long time. Setting a standard of policy gram since the time he was about ten years old back in 1986. He is the ultimate triple threat serving in a number of distinguished positions in academia, government and private sector. He serves as special advisor to the secretary of defense unders president reagan. He has been a trusted advisor to seven secretaries of defense, both democrat and republican. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the secretary of state and the director of the Central Intelligence agency. He has the sole distinction of been awarded the department of defense highest civilian award, the Public Service medal. As many of you know he has written extensively about Nuclear Weapons, terrorism and decisionmaking. His first book, essence of decision, explaining the cuban missile crisis is one of the most influential books in Political Science. It has become required reading for the vast majority of Political Science students today. Now, that is saying something. If you are a political scientist, you know there have been so many articles and books written about the cuban missile crisis. Theres even an article about why we should stop writing articles about the cuban missile crisis. His book has stood the test of time. That book has sold more than 450,000 copies which makes you the tom clancy of our field. He has written some other influential books, the grand master insight on china and the world and a book called nuclear terrorism, the ultimate preventable catastrophe now in its third printing and selected by one of the most notable books of the year when it came out. This book is no different. Just for fun i typed in bestselling Political Science book on amazon. Com and the three authors at the top were al franken, Graham Allison. There is only one weakness in his illustrious career. He never saw the light as Neil Ferguson did to move from harvard to stanford, but im here to take to say its not too late for you. Joining him in conversation today is his much smarter colleague who moved to california, Neil Ferguson who is a colleague of mine and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution institution. He is also a senior fellow at the center for European Studies at harvard and a visiting professor in beijing. He is one of the worlds leading economic historians and widely followed political commentator and terrific author. He has sold 450,000 book. Hes a prolific author. Kissinger, the latest 1923 1923 1926, a highly awarded book, civilization the west and the rest, the ascent of money, financial history of the world, you can see he picks very niche topics at hand how britain made the world and the rise and fall of the empire. Before coming to stanford he was professor of history at harvard for 11 years and before that he taught at nyu, oxford and the London School of economics. Hes won a number of awards and perhaps is the only person i know who can say hes one International Emmy for his pbs series and the award for best documentary from the new York InternationalFilm Festival for his feature length film kissinger. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine and in 2017 he received a first from the Hoover Institution which was to get every single fellow interested in International Security affairs together for the first of what has become a series that has proven to provided illuminating and fascinating conversation. You are about to see why when you hear them talk about Graham Allisons book. Please join me in welcoming them. [applause] you can see the introductions are better here than they are at harvard. Think you amy. So one thing she didnt mention is that we have also been coauthors. We published an article on applied history last year arguing that the president of the United States needed the council of historical advisors, this one specifically. We are not in an adversarial relationship. Indeed the book that we are going to talk about is a book that i watched evolve while i was at harvard and have to congratulate you, you got the timing just right. If you arent worried now about the possibility of conflict between china and the United States, when you leave this room, i guarantee you will be. Let me begin with a quotation from the book. When a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, alarm bells should sound, danger had been china and the u. S. Are currently on a collision course for war unless both parties take difficult and painful actions to avert it. And, were between the United States and china is not just pop possible but much more widely than recognize. War is more likely than not. Ive got to ask you to set out your case, assuming most the people in the room have bought the book but not yet read it. [laughter] persuade us that war is more likely than not between the United States and china. Thank you very much for participating in this event. I think everyone here for organizing, especially amy. Its a great honor and opportunity for me to be here at stanford. I did spend one very happy year here in my advanced studies back in the 70s when i thought i cant possibly come here because i wouldnt get any work done. Its too nice and theres too many other things to do. Its a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the introduction. So, not for this group but for general audiences, the concept that there could be a war between great powers is inconceivable. Seven decades without war, war between great powers. [inaudible] is not anything to do with the 20th century. There havent been for a long time and any historical study will recognize how silly that is. The proposition about the long piece is a powerful proposition so the notion that peace is either a natural condition of mankind or that for whatever reason we are now better angels and have become so powerful or so wise or in any case, war between great powers is obsolete, i dont believe it. Thats the premise. Now in the case of u. S. And china, i think every day there is noise and news about whats happening in this relationship. Either north koreas testing missiles or china becomes the number one trading partner of germany where theres a new collision in the South China Sea or whatever. Is there some way to look beneath the surface of this daily noise and news to see something of the structure or substructure of whats driving these events, and i came upon the idea that the insight basically helped illuminate whats happening today in china. Namely a rising power is threatening to displace another power. That storyline is as old as history itself so the founder of history as we know. [inaudible] he said, it was the rise and the fear that made the war inevitable. He identified the dynamic in which a rising power feels stronger and deserve a little more weight. The current arrangement set in place before i was bigger and stronger are confining. Maybe i can even remember some abuses, and the ruling power thanks they are trying to upset the situation that has provided the environment so this dynamic between the rising power in the ruling power exhausts trust so they are misinterpreted by the other. If i tried to be benign you suspect to have an ulterior motive and vice versa. Similarly we create vulnerability to the impact of external actions or events in which something happens and one thing triggers a reaction and then a cascade at the end of which is an outcome no one would have imagined. The dynamic here is not that in the rising ruling power of relationship one part Party Decides this is a good idea. Thats not the proposition. The proposition is rather the arrangements are great because they provided a long time of peace and allowed to grow rich and, the u. S. Constructed, in the aftermath of world war ii, and economic and Security Order which has provided for longer peace and greater prosperity than china ever saw and 5000 years. They should be extremely grateful and they should actually participate in this order. They say who wrote these roles and where were we when the rules were written and are the rules fair and should they be adjusted maybe i should have more say when we say sit in your place, you should be happy and grateful. What was happening in korea was happening between the u. S. And britain or imagine ireland was becoming threatening to the two parties, the british and americans with the damage said lets not disturb relations between two big states. But solve this problem. With the u. S. And china, as we watch what happens in north korea, the chinese, actually, as you know very well. [inaudible] from a chinese perspective in beijing, the problem in korea is only that we are there. There would be no problem in korea if the americans were not in korea. We would solve this problem in a second. From the american perspective, the idea that we the minute, we dont belong there, 40000 americans died there, we help build a society there and its a very successful democracy on the 13th largest market economy in the world, were not walking away from that and saying adios, thank you very much, we are proud of this and we should be proud of this. They said well so the problem is you china, you should solve this problem. Where the one thats creating a problem. So i think as youve written neil brilliantly about world war i, if you go back, a good chapter in the book, i do not believe you can study world war i too much. Its totally dumbfounding. I think the answer after the war when people say how do we this happen and he said if we only knew, he has the right answer. How could the assassination in syria ava, the archduke knows the guy in vienna and they told him he should go there. The guy that assassinates him is from, if you were writing a movie you wouldnt be able to make this up. That in turn burns down the whole house of europe. Its crazy. Did anybody want the war they got . No. They would have liked to have to swish them because of the way they were behaving, but actually as you pointed out would it would allow them to do that without having a great war but one thing led to the other and by the end everybody had lost the thing they care about most. I do think its so startling and irrelevant as we try to think about china. Theres nobody who wants a war with china. I dont know of a Single Person who doesnt think that would be crazy. I think theres no one that thanks the war with the u. S. Is a good idea. War would be catastrophic. But, at the end of world war i, what had happened and what each party care most about wilpon they were trying to hold together and empire and the emperor was gone. The kaiser is trying to back his buddy in vienna. Hes gone. The french were back in the russians. The society never recovered in britain is turned into a debtor so if you had given these people a chance for a do over, not a single one wouldve made the choices he did. I think a situation where nobody wants war in which Everybody Knows war would be nuts doesnt mean that war cant happen. Your analogy here would be the rivalry between germany which many historians have seen essential to the outbreak of that war in this case, britain, in 1914 was the incumbent power as the United States today, they were both heavily independent economically and nevertheless that came with consequences. Because of this rivalry, and my reading of it and i think its consistent with your own history of it, they had each become entangled with other parties about who they would otherwise not have been entangled with. He wouldve understood exactly how weak the hungarians were and not about to let them drag him into something. He wouldve never left the alliance with russia lapse, but you got a kaiser who didnt know what he was doing trying to run the german hand, and they begin to make these mistakes. Similarly, the british have been very careful for 400 years not to get to entangled with any other party on the continent. Fearful of germany, they have succumbed, i guess maybe we should have more relationships with the russians, even though they were very right about the russians, they thought the russians were threatening their empire in india. In the book, i should explain, he gives you 16 cases of an incumbent power feeling threatened by a rising power and this is the Political Science part, the argument in 12 out of 15 results in conflict. Id like to talk more about that analogy and then id like to get onto the contemporary parallel in which small rogue regime. [inaudible] its worth pointing out, you may not have read the Peloponnesian War but chinas leaders sure have. Raise your hand if youve read all or parts of it. Thats good. Let me make the shout out because i like this very much. You can go right now when youre done and download for free on to your kindle that and only read the first 100 pages, book one and it will knock your socks off. I guarantee it, for free. I hope you like the other book two but you have to pay for it. Its not downloadable for free yet. Im sure somebodys working on it. Lets briefly talk about this. One of the most remarkable things for me is that this has become something that chinas leaders refer to. He himself referred to this in a speech in seattle, remind me if ive got that wrong, and we heard just the other day that the chinese investors in the United States referred to it. It may seem arcane if youre not into agent history but it doesnt seem arcane in beijing, thats for sure. Just one . The, who is athens in this analogy because im not quite sure. I think this is certainly not. [inaudible] its not like this is exactly like that and next to his our mutual colleague and founder, ernest mae would point out that when you get attracted to an analogy, be careful, always take a page of paper and draw a line down the middle of the page and write similar at the top of one column in different at the top of the other column. If you cant make three bullet points under each, taken aspirin and consultant historian. These are not exactly right. In fact, in the spartan case, as you know very well, sparta had been the ruler of greece for 100 years. That was the normal circumstance. The persians had come and had a big war and thats what we call the iranians now. They had built a fleet so their navy, their people were professional and worked all time whereas the other guys were soldiers and lo and behold if your professional you can do a little bit better than a pickup game. They produced a impressive navy and created an alliance structure. Together athens and sparta then defeated the persians. Whereupon there was something that has happened a few other times, but there was this explosion of creative energy, just unbelievable so one of the opinions in this, i was just in silicone valley with people in the tech world. What do these guys invent. They invented drama. History. Philosophy, socrates, aristotle, democracy, architecture look at the parthenon. Can you find a better building in california . Excuse me. From sparta, people looking up thing these people are totally out of control. Every day they get up and they invent crazy new things. Sparta was marshall society. It was essentially a seal team six. When kids are four years old check out the prospect and the other ones you kill him and then you brought him up and the males have to live in barracks until her 25 years old and they cant get married until the 30, they were all the time marching around getting ready to fight people and lo and behold they were very good at it. Thats what they do. But the idea of drama and history and philosophy and architecture, this all seemed very threatening to the spartans. So they said, look, the way things are are the way things are supposed to be. So after the war with the persians, the athenians wanted to billback their wall to protect them from invasions from people like the spartans. They said no, you cannot have the wall because we need to discipline you and be able to march there. They disobeyed us, the incumbent power and built this wall. Why would they build this wall . Probably because they didnt want to obey us. So it started from there and if you said whats the similarities between the u. S. And china, i think there are obviously extreme differences in both cases, but from an american perspective, the International Order that we have helped build and provide and manage over seven decades has actually worked very well if we put it in broad historical terms, i would give it high marks in many areas. From a chinese perspective, that was then and they think china was a