Re: εξελίξεις στην Ουκρανία
Δημοσιεύτηκε: 08 Φεβ 2023, 10:48
George Marshall, the American secretary of state, said in 1947 that he doubted whether it was possible to
think ‘with full wisdom’ about the world unless one made a decent study of Thucydides. Five years later, as Nato was taking
shape, another American diplomat, Louis Halle, made the comparison more explicit:
‘Our country finds herself, like Athens after the Peloponnesian wars, called on to
assume the leadership of the free world …’ Every well-educated listener knew what
he meant, except that it would have made more sense to speak of Athens before those hostilities.
As a way of understanding any situation where two or more constellations of states
are in chronic competition, the writing of Thucydides certainly offers some illumination. Still, the comparison between Athens and Nato is not entirely flattering to the latter. In some ways, the Athenian empire was more comparable to the Warsaw
Pact, or even the Soviet Union, in the way it enforced discipline in its own ranks. In 471, the island of Naxos tried seceding from the Athenian-led alliance and was duly besieged and stripped of its own defences. An apogee of Athenian ruthlessness
came in 427 with the bloody suppression of an attempt by the leaders of Mytilene,
capital of the powerful island of Lesbos, to switch sides.
One striking parallel with modern times lies in the way each of the Greek blocs propagated a political ideology which it tried to
impose on other places whenever the opportunity arose. Athens spawned minidemocracies, Sparta mini-oligarchies. That
could serve a convenient ideological purpose. When Athens imposed its power on
distant places, it could claim to be doing so
in the name of democracy.
Other useful lessons from Thucydides
have to do with the micro-dynamics of
competition between alliances. As in modern times, the two hegemons often faced
petty local disputes between their respective proteges and they had to make calculations as to how aggressively to pursue their
own camp’s interest. As in modern times,
they developed methods of carefully calibrated intervention.
Thus in 435BC, Athens found itself pondering how forcefully to help Corcyra –
modern Corfu – in its uprising against its
parent city Corinth, which was a linchpin of
the Spartan-led alliance. One option was to
use the ‘overwhelming force’ of the Athenian navy to support the island. Instead,
the Athenians voted to send a limited force
of ten triremes, with instructions only to
intervene if the island looked in danger of
being overwhelmed.
In modern terms, this is the equivalent
of America offering ‘non-lethal assistance’
to Ukraine in the hope of deterring, but not
enraging, the Russians.
Time and again, the strategists of Athens and Sparta faced local skirmishes which
could easily develop into a generalized conflict. The modern question of how much
help to give ‘our son of a bitch’ against ‘their
son of a bitch’ was very familiar to ancient
Greek decision-makers. They had to factor in that small allies could act mischievously to provoke and escalate a small-time
squabble; and the possibility that any show of weakness, even in a petty quarrel in a remote pace, could give heart to the imperial
rival. Clearly, those Athenian and Spartan decision makers didn’t always make the
right call, and this was sometimes because they grossly misread one another’s intentions. But the sort of fine-grained calculus
they found themselves making is instantly recognizable in the State Department or
the Pentagon.
Nato’s virtuous circle Wading a little deeper into the weeds of Thucydidean thought, the Greek author
sheds helpful light on one of the arguments that post-Cold War Nato has made as a way
of justifying its continued relevance. This has to do with the relationship between
military effectiveness and democracy. As today’s Atlantic alliance presents itself, it
is not merely a mutual defence pact, but a partnership of democratic states.
As it scrutinizes potential future members and partners, Nato encourages them
not only to upgrade their arsenals but to burnish their democratic credentials by, for
example, making sure that their militaries are subject to civilian control. Nato sees the
relationship between strong defence and robust democracy as a virtuous circle.
Thucydides has a lot to say about this matter, and his arguments are so densely
woven that his modern interpreters are divided over whether he was, ultimately, an
admirer or a critic of democracy. In fact, he addresses the question from two diametrically opposing angles, both of which have
contemporary resonance. In describing the first ten years of the inter-Greek war (431-421BC), he presents
Athens as a place where democracy and the city itself proved astonishingly resilient in the face of disasters, including a
plague which claimed the lives of perhaps a third of the population. Athens was able to
recover and fight Sparta to a draw, and its endurance apparently reflected what modern political scientists call the democratic
advantage: the fact that open societies, even in adversity, can foster innovative
thinking, meritocracy and risk-taking. To that extent, Nato’s new philosophy gets
a boost.
But in his incomplete decription of the final phase of the war, Thucydides paints
a much darker picture. On one hand, the outer forms of Athenian democracy proved
relatively robust, despite two violent but short-lived interruptions. But on the other,
in an embittered, war-weary climate, impeccably democratic procedures could
lead to disastrous decisions, egged on by demagogues. These included the despatch
in 415BC of a huge expeditionary force from Athens to Sicily where it was virtually wiped out.
The details of the Greek historian’s argument don’t matter so much as the fact that
he was wrestling in an intelligent way with some problems that are very familiar today.
The historian’s ‘democratic advantage’ argument – an insight developed by Stanford
Professor Josiah Ober – is an attractive one for western policymakers but it is not obviously true. In an all-out conflict, totalitarian
regimes and vertical power structures also have some advantages which western policymakers can easily underestimate. As for
the warning that Thucydides gives us about demagogues taking control of democratic
institutions, every 21st century reader will be able to suggest modern examples of populism and its abuses.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/defa ... s%2005.pdf
think ‘with full wisdom’ about the world unless one made a decent study of Thucydides. Five years later, as Nato was taking
shape, another American diplomat, Louis Halle, made the comparison more explicit:
‘Our country finds herself, like Athens after the Peloponnesian wars, called on to
assume the leadership of the free world …’ Every well-educated listener knew what
he meant, except that it would have made more sense to speak of Athens before those hostilities.
As a way of understanding any situation where two or more constellations of states
are in chronic competition, the writing of Thucydides certainly offers some illumination. Still, the comparison between Athens and Nato is not entirely flattering to the latter. In some ways, the Athenian empire was more comparable to the Warsaw
Pact, or even the Soviet Union, in the way it enforced discipline in its own ranks. In 471, the island of Naxos tried seceding from the Athenian-led alliance and was duly besieged and stripped of its own defences. An apogee of Athenian ruthlessness
came in 427 with the bloody suppression of an attempt by the leaders of Mytilene,
capital of the powerful island of Lesbos, to switch sides.
One striking parallel with modern times lies in the way each of the Greek blocs propagated a political ideology which it tried to
impose on other places whenever the opportunity arose. Athens spawned minidemocracies, Sparta mini-oligarchies. That
could serve a convenient ideological purpose. When Athens imposed its power on
distant places, it could claim to be doing so
in the name of democracy.
Other useful lessons from Thucydides
have to do with the micro-dynamics of
competition between alliances. As in modern times, the two hegemons often faced
petty local disputes between their respective proteges and they had to make calculations as to how aggressively to pursue their
own camp’s interest. As in modern times,
they developed methods of carefully calibrated intervention.
Thus in 435BC, Athens found itself pondering how forcefully to help Corcyra –
modern Corfu – in its uprising against its
parent city Corinth, which was a linchpin of
the Spartan-led alliance. One option was to
use the ‘overwhelming force’ of the Athenian navy to support the island. Instead,
the Athenians voted to send a limited force
of ten triremes, with instructions only to
intervene if the island looked in danger of
being overwhelmed.
In modern terms, this is the equivalent
of America offering ‘non-lethal assistance’
to Ukraine in the hope of deterring, but not
enraging, the Russians.
Time and again, the strategists of Athens and Sparta faced local skirmishes which
could easily develop into a generalized conflict. The modern question of how much
help to give ‘our son of a bitch’ against ‘their
son of a bitch’ was very familiar to ancient
Greek decision-makers. They had to factor in that small allies could act mischievously to provoke and escalate a small-time
squabble; and the possibility that any show of weakness, even in a petty quarrel in a remote pace, could give heart to the imperial
rival. Clearly, those Athenian and Spartan decision makers didn’t always make the
right call, and this was sometimes because they grossly misread one another’s intentions. But the sort of fine-grained calculus
they found themselves making is instantly recognizable in the State Department or
the Pentagon.
Nato’s virtuous circle Wading a little deeper into the weeds of Thucydidean thought, the Greek author
sheds helpful light on one of the arguments that post-Cold War Nato has made as a way
of justifying its continued relevance. This has to do with the relationship between
military effectiveness and democracy. As today’s Atlantic alliance presents itself, it
is not merely a mutual defence pact, but a partnership of democratic states.
As it scrutinizes potential future members and partners, Nato encourages them
not only to upgrade their arsenals but to burnish their democratic credentials by, for
example, making sure that their militaries are subject to civilian control. Nato sees the
relationship between strong defence and robust democracy as a virtuous circle.
Thucydides has a lot to say about this matter, and his arguments are so densely
woven that his modern interpreters are divided over whether he was, ultimately, an
admirer or a critic of democracy. In fact, he addresses the question from two diametrically opposing angles, both of which have
contemporary resonance. In describing the first ten years of the inter-Greek war (431-421BC), he presents
Athens as a place where democracy and the city itself proved astonishingly resilient in the face of disasters, including a
plague which claimed the lives of perhaps a third of the population. Athens was able to
recover and fight Sparta to a draw, and its endurance apparently reflected what modern political scientists call the democratic
advantage: the fact that open societies, even in adversity, can foster innovative
thinking, meritocracy and risk-taking. To that extent, Nato’s new philosophy gets
a boost.
But in his incomplete decription of the final phase of the war, Thucydides paints
a much darker picture. On one hand, the outer forms of Athenian democracy proved
relatively robust, despite two violent but short-lived interruptions. But on the other,
in an embittered, war-weary climate, impeccably democratic procedures could
lead to disastrous decisions, egged on by demagogues. These included the despatch
in 415BC of a huge expeditionary force from Athens to Sicily where it was virtually wiped out.
The details of the Greek historian’s argument don’t matter so much as the fact that
he was wrestling in an intelligent way with some problems that are very familiar today.
The historian’s ‘democratic advantage’ argument – an insight developed by Stanford
Professor Josiah Ober – is an attractive one for western policymakers but it is not obviously true. In an all-out conflict, totalitarian
regimes and vertical power structures also have some advantages which western policymakers can easily underestimate. As for
the warning that Thucydides gives us about demagogues taking control of democratic
institutions, every 21st century reader will be able to suggest modern examples of populism and its abuses.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/defa ... s%2005.pdf
