An article published on War on the Rocks.
"The states most likely to draw America into its next major crisis or war are not unknowns. They are the usual suspects: The same handful of states that have threatened the United States repeatedly across decades. Interstate rivals have caused roughly 80 percent of history’s wars and the odds of any given rivalry ending peacefully are little better than a coin toss. Yet America’s key strategy documents since the 2017 National Security Strategy have used phrases like great power competition, interstate strategic competition, and strategic competition without acknowledging the essential difference between a competition and a rivalry. Nor does the U.S. military’s foundational doctrine for navigating competitive relationships — the Joint Concept for Competing — distinguish between a rival and a mere competitor. These are dangerous oversights because competitions and rivalries demand fundamentally different strategies."