CIMSEC – Athens and Sparta serve as parables for the U.S. and China. While Athens offers lessons to the U.S. as a historic precursor, ultimately it was a foolhardy rising power that collapsed following a disastrous invasion of an island hundreds of miles offshore. Perhaps while the Taiwan Strait is no Ionian Sea and technological advances have long rendered triremes obsolete, this strategic warning is more relevant to China. Sparta, a status quo power like the U.S., simply had to await its adversary’s fatal misjudgment to invade Sicily–the rest is history.