Is the Thucydides Trap Relevant to the Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire? A Cliometric Analysis

One of the most complex issues in history is explaining how great powers emerge and, eventually, how they decline and disappear. The first written explanation of the rise and fall of great empires was offered by the "Father of History," Herodotus, in the 5th century BCE. Among many other topics, he sought to explain the rise and fall of the great powers of his time, such as the Persian Empire, the Median Empire, the Egyptian Kingdoms, and others. His main thesis attributed the rise and fall of these great powers to individual charisma and divine intervention and fate. Thucydides, writing later in the same century, offered a different perspective. He emphasized material conditions and the dynamics of relative power: as one power emerges, it challenges the established great power. War is highly probable unless the established power yields to the demands of the emerging power. This situation has come to be known as the Thucydides Trap, a concept revisited in this century to describe the alleged antagonism between the emerging power of China and the established power of the United States. I apply this theory of rising and falling great powers to the Ottoman Empire, which emerged in the 13th century and was dissolved in the early 20th century, primarily due to its economic and military competition with the emerging power of England after the 15th century. I adopt a cliometric approach, relying on available quantitative data to test the theory. Specifically, I examine the territorial extent of the Ottoman Empire and the GDP per capita of England to quantify the level of their greatness during this 600-year period. The evidence suggests that the Ottoman Empire reached its peak just before the First Industrial Revolution, which occurred in Europe, primarily in England, in the mid-18th century. Thereafter, the empire began to decline, and by the end of the Second Industrial Revolution in 1912 and World War I in 1918, the Ottoman Empire had effectively dissolved, eventually being replaced by Türkiye in 1923. Keywords: Ottoman Empire, Türkiye, England, Industrial Revolution, Great Powers, Cliometrics