Fuses, Chains, and Backlashes analyzes the factors and processes that have historically ignited wars among the great powers and applies the resulting insights to examine the potential for contemporary Sino-American competition to flare into conflict. Distinguished political scientist Steve Chan emphasizes the importance of considering multiple enabling conditions for system-level conflict, including power shifts, armament races, alliance dynamics, and enduring rivalries. But these conditions in themselves do not always lead to war. Chan introduces the idea of a catalyst--or fuse--that ignites the combustible mixture produced by these variables' interactions. He traces the origins of many large conflagrations to local feuds-such as the dispute across the Taiwan Straits--which in turn invite intervention by third parties--like the United States. By analyzing possible causal pathways to interstate war and applying this historical, empirical context to the present-day relationship between the US and China, Chan hopes to help us learn from the past and avoid future catastrophe.