A fairly interesting piece published in The New York Times by Stewart Patrick...

Forwarded From YIGAL LEVIN

A fairly interesting piece published in The New York Times by Stewart Patrick examines current U.S. foreign policy through the lens of the works of the ancient Greek historian Thucydides.

In his foundational “History of the Peloponnesian War,” Thucydides laid the groundwork for political realism, viewing conflicts not as the will of the gods, but as the stark result of human ambition, fear, and the thirst for power.

The historian showed in detail how a shift in the balance of power destroys old arrangements and inevitably pushes states toward a cynical struggle for dominance on the world stage.

Politicians and analysts regularly invoke this work to explain the inevitability of rivalry between great powers and to justify the rule of the strong over the weak.

Thus, the United States is now increasingly justifying its uses of force — including the operation in Venezuela, the campaign and ultimatums toward Iran, and pressure on NATO allies — with the classic ancient formula that the strong do what they want by right of strength.

However, the author points to a fundamental mistake in this interpretation of Thucydides’ legacy, since the main lesson of the Peloponnesian War was not the effectiveness of blind force at all.

On the contrary, Thucydides showed that it was precisely Athens’ transformation from a legitimate leader into an aggressive state trampling the weak and dissenters — the conquest of the island of Melos, for example — that destroyed its neighbors’ trust, united its enemies, and ultimately led Athens to complete collapse.

This historical trap now directly threatens Washington, whose diplomatic success after 1945 was largely based on a skillful — the author is not afraid to call it brilliant — embedding of its colossal power into a system of international institutions, which made American dominance legitimate in the eyes of the rest of the world.

All the countries that joined the orbit of U.S. influence and hegemony ultimately benefited — this applied to all states, large and small alike.

Now, however, by shifting toward a policy of overt coercion by force and military operations, the States are methodically dismantling this institutional framework (I will add that a good question is whether this is happening for objective and inevitable reasons, or whether it could still have been avoided).

Such abuse of structural superiority not only erases the line between U.S. actions and the behavior of its geopolitical competitors, but also risks driving America into complete isolation as a lonely superpower in a world where the rules it helped create no longer work.

Incidentally, all of this fits naturally with the recent manifesto from Palantir, which anticipates a similar scenario and urges preparation for it.

As familiar alliances are lost and global chaos grows, the United States will have to act even more aggressively, compensating for the loss of its former institutional influence solely by betting on hard power and technological superiority.

But the “Thucydides Trap” concerns not only the United States, the author warns, but also China — likely referring to a scenario in which it does decide to go to war against its neighbors, succumbing to the temptation to use brute force.

Brute force guided only by force itself, and disregarding even allies and partners, is undoubtedly capable of yielding dividends, but in the strategic perspective it carries major risks.

@yigal\levin