Graham Allison

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Graham Allison

| image = Graham_T._Allison,_Jr.jpg

| caption = Allison in 2017

| office = Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

| term_start = June 1, 1995

| term_end = July 1, 2017

| predecessor =

| successor = Ash Carter

| office1 = Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans

| president1 = Bill Clinton

| predecessor1 =

| successor1 =

| term_start1 = August 6, 1993

| term_end1 = March 15, 1994

| office2 = Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government

| term_start2 = June 1, 1977

| term_end2 = May 30, 1989

| predecessor2 = Don K. Price

| successor2 = Robert D. Putnam

| birth_name = Graham Tillett Allison Jr.

| birth_date = {{nowrap|{{birth date and age|1940|3|23}}}}

| birth_place = {{nowrap|Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.}}

| death_date =

| death_place =

| children = {{Collapsible list|title=See list|1={{plain list|

Rebecca Allison
Madison Allison
Dashiell Allison
Jacob Allison
Henry C. Allison}}}}

| education = Harvard University (BA, PhD)
Hertford College, Oxford (BA, MA)

}}

Graham Tillett Allison Jr. (born March 23, 1940) is an American political scientist and the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.{{Cite web|url=https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/graham-allison|title=Graham Allison|website=www.hks.harvard.edu|date=10 February 2023 }} He is known for his contributions in the late 1960s and early 1970s to the bureaucratic analysis of decision making, especially during times of crisis. His book Remaking Foreign Policy: The Organizational Connection, co-written with Peter L. Szanton, was published in 1976 and influenced the foreign policy of the Carter administration. Since the 1970s, Allison has also been a leading analyst of U.S. national security and defense policy, with a special interest in nuclear weapons and terrorism.{{Cite web|url=https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/graham-allison|title=Graham Allison|website=www.hks.harvard.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-05-23}}

Early life and education

Allison is from Charlotte, North Carolina, and graduated from Myers Park High School in 1958.{{cite news |title=Nominations Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, First Session, 103d Congress: Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate |volume=103 |issue=414 |pages=1106–1108 |date=1994 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-0-16-043611-6}} He attended Davidson College for two years, then transferred to Harvard University from which he graduated in 1962 with a B.A. degree. Allison then completed B.A. and M.A. in philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar in 1964 and returned to Harvard to earn a Ph.D. in political science in 1968, where Henry Kissinger was one of his professors.{{Citation |title=A Conversation with Henry Kissinger: Historical Perspectives on War {{!}} Davos 2023 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbCFnn_g_MI |language=en |access-date=2023-01-19}}

Career

Allison has spent his entire academic career at Harvard, as an assistant professor (1968), associate professor (1970), then full professor (1972) in the department of government on the strength of his book Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971), in which he developed two new theoretical paradigms – an organizational process model and a bureaucratic politics model – to compete with the then-prevalent approach of understanding foreign policy decision-making using a rational actor model. Essence of Decision revolutionized the study of decision-making in political science and beyond.{{Cite web|url=https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/essence-decision-explaining-cuban-missile-crisis-2nd-ed|title=Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed.|website=Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs|language=en|access-date=2019-06-01}}

From 1977 to 1989, Allison was dean of the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University. Over the course of his tenure as dean, Harvard Kennedy School increased in size by 400% and its endowment by 700%.

He was associated with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans from 1993 to 1994, where he coordinated strategy and policy towards the states of the former Soviet Union. President Bill Clinton awarded Allison the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, for "reshaping relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to reduce the former Soviet nuclear arsenal".

Allison directed the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs from 1995 until 2017, when he was succeeded by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.{{cite news|last1=Stewart|first1=Martha|title=Ash Carter to head Belfer Center|url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/03/former-u-s-secretary-of-defense-to-head-harvards-belfer-center/|access-date=6 April 2018|work=The Harvard Gazette|date=March 28, 2017}}

In a 2012 Financial Times article titled "Thucydides’s trap has been sprung in the Pacific", Allison coined the term the Thucydides Trap to argue for the possibility of a war between the United States and China.{{Cite web |title=Year in a Word: Thucydides’s trap |url=https://www.ft.com/content/0e4ddcf4-fc78-11e8-aebf-99e208d3e521 |access-date=2024-07-10 |website=www.ft.com}} Allison later defined as the Trap as a historical pattern where "when one great power threatens to displace another, war is almost always the result,"{{cite news |last1=Allison |first1=Graham |date=June 9, 2017 |title=The Thucydides Trap |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/09/the-thucydides-trap/ |publisher=FP |agency=FP}} and in 2017 expanded his argument about a future conflict into a full-length book, Destined for War. The theory is based on the History of the Peloponnesian War, in which Thucydides wrote, "What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta."{{cite news |author=Ben Schott |author-link=Ben Schott |title=The Thucydides Trap |url=http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-thucydides-trap/ |newspaper=The New York Times |date=January 31, 2011 |access-date=2013-06-07}} Allison asserts that circumstances at the start of World War I (involving British fears about Germany), the War of the Spanish Succession, and the Thirty Years' War (involving French insecurity about the Habsburg empires of Spain and Austria) exhibit the trap.{{Cite web|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/09/the-thucydides-trap/|title=The Thucydides Trap|last=Allison|first=Graham|website=Foreign Policy|date=9 June 2017 |language=en|access-date=2019-06-01}} The term appeared in a paid opinion advertisement in The New York Times on April 6, 2017, on the occasion of U.S. President Donald Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which stated, "Both major players in the region share a moral obligation to steer away from Thucydides's Trap."{{cite news |author=Zhu Dongyang (Xinhua News Agency) |date=April 6, 2017 |title=Advertisement |newspaper=The New York Times}} Both Allison's conception of the Thucydides Trap and its applicability to U.S.-Chinese relations have encountered heavy scholarly criticism.{{Cite web|last=Waldron|first=Arthur|date=2017-06-12|title=There is no Thucydides Trap|url=http://supchina.com/2017/06/12/no-thucydides-trap/|access-date=2020-06-09|website=SupChina}}{{Cite book|last1=Feng|first1=Huiyun|title=China's Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond "Thucydides's Trap"|last2=He|first2=Kai|date=2020|publisher=University of Michigan Press|isbn=978-0-472-13176-1|location=Ann Arbor, MI|language=en|doi=10.3998/mpub.11353648|hdl=2027/fulcrum.0g354g88p|s2cid=211436877}}{{Cite book|last=Chan|first=Steve|title=Thucydides's Trap?: Historical Interpretation, Logic of Inquiry, and the Future of Sino-American Relations|date=2020|publisher=University of Michigan Press|isbn=978-0-472-13170-9|location=Ann Arbor, MI|language=en|doi=10.3998/mpub.11387628|hdl=2027/fulcrum.pv63g2033|s2cid=211667383}} In March 2019, the Journal of Chinese Political Science dedicated a special issue to the topic,{{Cite journal|last1=Zhang|first1=Chunman|last2=Pu|first2=Xiaoyu|date=2019-01-25|title=Introduction: Can America and China Escape the Thucydides Trap?|journal=Journal of Chinese Political Science|volume=24|issue=1|pages=1–9|doi=10.1007/s11366-019-09609-y|s2cid=159291437|issn=1080-6954}} suggesting power transition narratives do appear to matter with regard to domestic perception.{{Cite journal|last1=Gries|first1=Peter|last2=Jing|first2=Yiming|date=2019-07-04|title=Are the US and China fated to fight? How narratives of 'power transition' shape great power war or peace|journal=Cambridge Review of International Affairs|volume=32|issue=4|pages=456–482|doi=10.1080/09557571.2019.1623170|s2cid=199330156|issn=0955-7571|url=https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/are-the-us-and-china-fated-to-fight(2649e476-15f5-46ef-a277-8aa1786efb64).html}}

Allison remains Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard.{{Cite web |date=2023-02-10 |title=Graham Allison |url=https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/graham-allison |access-date=2023-06-28 |website=www.hks.harvard.edu |language=en}}

Allison has also been a fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies (1973–74); member of the visiting committee on foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution (1972–77); and a member of the Trilateral Commission (1974–84 and 2018).{{Cite web|url=http://trilateral.org/page/7/membership|title=Membership – The Trilateral Commission|website=trilateral.org|access-date=2018-12-27|archive-date=2019-02-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190202094821/http://trilateral.org/page/7/membership|url-status=dead}} He was among those mentioned to succeed David Rockefeller as President of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1979 Allison received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden.{{Cite web|url=https://www.uu.se/en/about-uu/traditions/prizes/honorary-doctorates/|title=Honorary doctorates – Uppsala University, Sweden|first=David|last=Naylor|website=www.uu.se|date=9 June 2023 }}

In 2009 he was awarded the NAS Award for Behavior Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War from the National Academy of Sciences.{{cite web|title=NAS Award for Behavior Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War|url=http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_behavioral_research|publisher=National Academy of Sciences|access-date=16 February 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604040753/http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_behavioral_research|archive-date=4 June 2011|df=dmy-all}}

Allison has also been a member of the Board of Trustees for the lobbying group USACC (United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce).{{Cite web |url=https://www.usacc.org/about-us/leadership/board-of-trustees/13-graham-allison.html |title=Graham Allison |access-date=5 March 2021 |archive-date=11 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141111133521/https://www.usacc.org/about-us/leadership/board-of-trustees/13-graham-allison.html |url-status=bot: unknown }}.

Allison is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

=Defence analyst work=

Allison has been heavily involved in U.S. defense policy since working as an advisor and consultant to the Pentagon in the 1960s, and has been consultant for the RAND Corporation. He has been a member of the Secretary of Defense's Defense Policy Board from 1985. He was a special advisor to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger for three years in the second term of office of Ronald Reagan.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/31/us/dukakis-learned-lesson-as-teacher.html|title=Dukakis Learned Lesson as Teacher|last1=Gold|first1=Allan R.|date=1988-08-31|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-06-01|last2=Times|first2=Special to The New York|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}

Publications

= Books =

Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2017). {{ISBN|978-0544935273}}.
Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Little, Brown (1971). {{ISBN|0673394123}}.
2nd ed., with Philip Zelikow. Longman (1999). {{ISBN|0321013492}}.

= Articles =

Trump Is Already Reshaping Geopolitics, Foreign Affairs, January 16, 2024{{Cite news |last=Allison |first=Graham |date=2024-01-16 |title=Trump Is Already Reshaping Geopolitics |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/trump-already-reshaping-geopolitics |access-date=2024-01-28 |work=Foreign Affairs |language=en-US |issn=0015-7120}}
The Path to AI Arms Control, Foreign Affairs, October 13, 2023 (co-authored with Henry Kissinger){{Cite news |last1=Kissinger |first1=Henry A. |last2=Allison |first2=Graham |date=2023-10-13 |title=The Path to AI Arms Control |language=en-US |work=Foreign Affairs |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/henry-kissinger-path-artificial-intelligence-arms-control |access-date=2023-10-17 |issn=0015-7120}}

Wikipedia paid editing scandal

From 2012 to 2013, the Belfer Center (through the Wikimedia Foundation) paid an editor to cite Allison's scholarly writings in various articles. Funding for the position came from the Stanton Foundation, for which Graham Allison's wife, Liz Allison, was one of two trustees. The editor also made "supposedly problematic edits" based heavily on work of other scholars affiliated with the Belfer Center.{{cite web|last1=Sampson|first1=Tim|title=One of Wikimedia's largest donors accused in paid editing scandal|url=https://www.dailydot.com/business/wikipedia-paid-editing-scandal-stanton/|website=The Daily Dot|date=14 April 2014 |access-date=April 2, 2017}}

References

Bibliography

Allison, Graham (2015-09-24). "[https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/united-states-china-war-thucydides-trap/406756/ The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?]", The Atlantic.
Welch, David (1993). "Graham Allison". In American Political Scientists: A Dictionary, eds G. Utter and C. Lockhart. Greenwood Press.

=Works=

1969: "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis". American Political Science Review. 63(3): 689–718.
1971: Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Little, Brown.
1972: "Bureaucratic Politics: A Paradigm and Some Policy Implications." World Politics. 24:40–79 (with Morton H. Halperin).
1976: Remaking Foreign Policy: The Organizational Connection. Basic Books (with Peter L. Szanton).
1983: Sharing International Responsibility Among the Trilateral Countries. Trilateral Commission (with Nobuhiko Ushiba and Thierry de Montbrial).
1985: Hawks, Doves and Owls: An Agenda for Avoiding Nuclear War. W.W. Norton. (edited with Albert Carnesale and Joseph Nye Jr).
1989: Windows of Opportunity: From Cold War to Peaceful Competition. Ballinger (edited with William Ury).
1992: Rethinking America's Security: Beyond Cold War to New World Order. W.W. Norton (edited with Gregory Treverton).
1996: Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing the Threat of Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material. MIT Press.
2004: Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. Henry Holt.
2013: Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World. MIT Press (with Robert D. Blackwill, Ali Wyne, and a foreword by Henry A. Kissinger).
2017: [https://books.google.com/books?id=CtmpDAAAQBAJ Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?]. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

External links

[https://www.c-span.org/person/?grahamallison Appearances] on C-SPAN
[https://www.huffpost.com/author/graham-allison Articles by Graham Allison] at HuffPost
[https://www.belfercenter.org/person/graham-allison Graham Allison's faculty page] at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
{{cite web|title=Destined for War: America & China|date=July 18, 2017|publisher=Talks at Google|website=YouTube|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDZAVNPbtBg}}
{{cite web|title=Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides' Trap?|date=May 15, 2018|publisher=Asia Society|website=YouTube|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gPoXwD_Jj8}}
{{cite web|title=Full Address and Q&A|date=May 9, 2021|publisher=Oxford Union|website=YouTube|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twS3lUSiaXs}}