Messianic Wilsonianism, an Exceptional Chauvinism? And How Thucydides’ Trap Legitimizes America’s “National Destiny”

Abstract As one of the most discussed theories in IR, Thucydides’ trap is based on the belief in US exceptionalism and the Wilsonian role of the US as champion of democracy, whereby the US presence in East Asia is taken for granted. Instead of confirming the loftiness of Wilsonianism, Allison’s misleading creation, significantly informed by Huntington, shows that America’s creedal nationalism is as an exceptional ideology that is different from other nationalisms in its appropriation and distortion of a particular political system and values as distinctively American, yet similar in the creation of conceptually feeble narratives. This interdisciplinary paper, which straddles political theory and nationalism scholarship, addresses Thucydides’ trap as an attempt, steeped in America’s distinct form of national chauvinism, to legitimize imperialism and messianic understandings of the US global reach through structural dynamics of power politics.