I agree with this. I think there’s multiple ways to generate predictions and couldn’t cover everything in one post. So while here I used broad historical trends, I think that considerations specific to US-China, US-Russia, and China-India relations should also influence our predictions. I discuss a few of those considerations on pp. 59-62 of my full report for Founders Pledge and hope to at least get a post on US-China relations out within the next 2-3 months.
One quick hot take: I think Allison greatly overestimates the proportion of power transitions that end in conflict. It’s not actually true that “incumbent hegemons rarely let others catch up to them without a fight” (emphasis mine). So, while I haven’t run the numbers yet, I’ll be somewhat surprised if my forecast of a US-China war ends up being higher than ~1 in 3 this century, and very surprised if it’s >50%. (Metaculus has it at 15% by 2035).
Makes sense, and I’m not surprised to hear Allison may overestimate the risk. By coincidence, I just finished a rough cost/benefit analysis of U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan for my studies, and his book on Nuclear Terrorism also seemed to exaggerate that risk. (I do give him credit for making an explicit prediction, though, a few years before most of us were into that sort of thing).
In any case, I look forward to a more detailed read of your Founders Pledge report once my exams end next week. The Evaluating Interventions section seems like precisely what I’ve been looking for in trying to plan my own foreign policy career.
I agree with this. I think there’s multiple ways to generate predictions and couldn’t cover everything in one post. So while here I used broad historical trends, I think that considerations specific to US-China, US-Russia, and China-India relations should also influence our predictions. I discuss a few of those considerations on pp. 59-62 of my full report for Founders Pledge and hope to at least get a post on US-China relations out within the next 2-3 months.
One quick hot take: I think Allison greatly overestimates the proportion of power transitions that end in conflict. It’s not actually true that “incumbent hegemons rarely let others catch up to them without a fight” (emphasis mine). So, while I haven’t run the numbers yet, I’ll be somewhat surprised if my forecast of a US-China war ends up being higher than ~1 in 3 this century, and very surprised if it’s >50%. (Metaculus has it at 15% by 2035).
Makes sense, and I’m not surprised to hear Allison may overestimate the risk. By coincidence, I just finished a rough cost/benefit analysis of U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan for my studies, and his book on Nuclear Terrorism also seemed to exaggerate that risk. (I do give him credit for making an explicit prediction, though, a few years before most of us were into that sort of thing).
In any case, I look forward to a more detailed read of your Founders Pledge report once my exams end next week. The Evaluating Interventions section seems like precisely what I’ve been looking for in trying to plan my own foreign policy career.