Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides_Trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides_Trap It's relevant to understand that China's government/busin

Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides_Trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides_Trap It's relevant to understand that China's government/business relationship and their IP enforcement + state-sponsored hacking is considered the normal course of business in their (current?) value system. In the USA, the government/business relationship is (ostensibly) very different (although campaign finance + lobbying makes this claim dubious), so the US could easily misinterpret Chinese actions in this new "5th domain" as an act of war. When one of two actors believe that they are both at war, it doesn't take much for both actors to believe they are at war. Also, I suspect with the 4 simultaneous crises (disease outbreak, economic depression, civil unrest, political loggerheads during this election year) the USA is having right now, China may well be able to outlast us and might end up the only "superpower" in a decade or two. A significant portion of the US population still thinks we are the "greatest nation" while our world rankings continue to slip below other OECD nations in {literacy, education, health, longevity, happiness, affordability, etc}. I suspect the "new cold war" is actually between two tribes in the USA. China just has to outlast our simmering civil war without galvanizing the two American factions together against them in battle.