History: Eternal Lessons

Thucydides, an Athenian historian, who also happened to serve as a general during the Peloponnesian war wrote a historical account of a war between Sparta and Athens between 431–404 BC - The History of the Peloponnesian War. He is also known as the father of ‘scientific history’ who unlike Herodotus known as ‘father of history’ relied on eyewitness accounts and did not believe in divine intervention. His book has been studied through the ages by generals and statesmen and is a must document at the Naval War College in Rhodes Island even today.

As I attempt to capture some of the situations and quotes in the book and explain their relevance even today, I am sure I will be unable to do full justice. Despite this, I will endeavor this recklessness.

1. “Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist forever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do” and “Three powerful motives prevent us from doing so – security, honour and self-interest” – A profound statement of realpolitik that would find approval from Chanakya to Machiavelli to Morgenthau which resonates in application of political power through the ages – French during Napoleon, British for most of the 18^th century through to World War II, Americans after World War II and especially after the fall of the Soviet Empire. With regard to the second part, even if the Americans want to accommodate the rise of Chinese power, history shows that such change is never easy exactly for the reasons outlined and the inability to judge the change in relative power balance and consequently give up in an orderly manner.
2. “We are only remonstrating with you, as is natural when one’s friends are making mistakes. Real accusations must be kept for one’s actual enemies who have actually done harm.” – An example of diplomatic speaking where the other person who is being blamed is being told that he is friend. Such amazing finesse at work even two and a half millennia ago.
3. “In a word, they are by nature incapable of either living a quiet life themselves or of allowing anyone else to do so.” – This was said of Athens at the height of its power. Doesn’t this remind us of American behavior now- fighting in the middle-east, checking the Russians, containing the Chinese? A superpower by the sheer weight to its actions, which to itself may seem almost a minor shift in its balance, creates massive ripples in other states.
4. “Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most.” – We are inherently afraid of the exercise of power and, thus, the act of holding back itself creates a massive psychological impact in effect magnifying the power and more so in a positive sense.
5. “And war is not so much a matter of armaments as of the money which makes armaments effective particularly is true in a war fought between a land power and sea power” and “But those who live inland or off the main trade routes ought to recognize the fact that if they fail to support the maritime powers, they will find it much more difficult to secure an outlet for their exports and to receive in the goods which are imported to them by sea” – This is what the Spartans (land power) said of the Athenians (sea power). The Soviets where the pre-eminent land power post World War II but had no access to sea (trade via sea is >60% of global trade) except in the frozen north and the east and through the Black Sea, gates to which were controlled by Turkey and Greece. This limited access ensured the Soviets could never develop a vibrant global economy. It was finally the inability to develop their economy which caused the downfall of Soviet empire.
6. “For it was only on the basis of equal strength that equal and fair discussions on the common interest could be held.” – The Ukrainians gave up their nuclear weapons inherited at the break-up of the Soviet empire which in some sense equalized the conventional force imbalance with Russia. They did not study their history well and have no chance of a reasonable settlement in the current imbroglio and Russians force their decisions.
7. “In other ways, too, the Athenians were no longer as popular as they used to be: they bore more than their share of actual fighting, but this made it all easier for them to force back into alliance any state that wanted to leave it.” – The British before or the American empire now!!
8. “Having no Hellenic war at their hands, the Athenians made an expedition against Cyprus and Egypt (under Persians).” – In the 19^th century the British had no significant European challenge and would manage the balance of power in the continent more by managing the powers stacked against each other and providing the residual balance. This allowed them massive autonomy to spread and manage their global empire. The Americans subdued North and South America allowing them to use their “spare capacity” globally, unchecked at home.
9. “He who thinks of his own pleasures and shirks from fighting is very likely, because of his own irresolution, to lose the very delight which caused this hesitation; while he who goes too far because of a success in war fails to realize the confidence in which he goes forward is a hollow thing.” – Foreign policy is about estimation of relative strengths, intent and geopolitical reality. British under Chamberlain followed a foreign policy of appeasement and did not a prevent an even bigger horror which finally led to the downfall of the empire while Hitler broke the pact with the Soviets after his initial victories to realize Baku not learning for the history of Napoleon’s war with Russia in early part of the 18^th century. History anyway is replete with such mis-judgements like Iraq and Afghanistan more recently by the Americans.
10. “…so long as they have no central deliberative authority to produce quick decisive action…everyone is concerned with his own interest – the usual result of which is that nothing gets done at all.” – We do not need to look far but the last 5 year government term under the UPA in India.
11. “Our constitution is called a democracy because power is not in the hands of a minority but of the whole people…when it’s a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility what matter is not membership of particular class but actual ability which a man possesses.” – Pericles, one of the leading men of Athens, made this statement at a funeral of the soldiers giving rationale for democracy and how it leads to meritocracy. Splendid clarity on national good!
12. “Your empire is like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is extremely dangerous to let it go.” – Again a profound statement underlying the understanding of great power politics. The European powers - Portuguese, Spanish, French and the British – built their empire forcing open North and South America, subduing the Middle East, ruling India and Indo-China and forcing the Chinese open. As they, vacated these geographies post World War II, they underwent serious convulsions (India-Pakistan, Taiwan-China, Israel-Arabs, Persians-Arabs) and while they let it go post World War II, these theatres are yet to stabilize for differing reasons but ultimately imbedded in the fact that that what was held in relative peace due to over-whelming force has been left open to historical fault lines i.e. the Kurds, Shias, Sunnis, Allawites fight for Syrian lands based religion. Can the Chinese live in peace if they give up Tibet and Xinjiang, as these restive provinces want?

Professor Bury, Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, pays a tribute to him, “If, instead of a history, Thucydides had written an analytical treatise on politics, with particular reference to the Athenian empire, it is probable that . . . he could have forestalled Machiavelli. . . .[since] the whole innuendo of the Thucydidean treatment of history agrees with the fundamental postulate of Machiavelli, the supremacy of reason of state. To maintain a state said the Florentine thinker, "a statesman is often compelled to act against faith, humanity and religion." . . . But . . . the true Machiavelli, not the Machiavelli of fable. . . entertained an ideal: Italy for the Italians, Italy freed from the stranger: and in the service of this ideal he desired to see his speculative science of politics applied. Thucydides has no political aim in view: he was purely a historian. But it was part of the method of both alike to eliminate conventional sentiment and morality.”