Posted on 10/26/2005 6:48:31 AM PDT by Valin
One of the many joys of teaching is the opportunity to revisit the same text, with different groups of students, at different times in the nation’s life. Our classroom conversations—inevitably informed by the big events taking place off our tiny stage—dwell on, illuminate, clarify, exaggerate, and distort the texts we examine.
In recent years, the author whose work has sparked the most spirited classroom discussion is Thucydides, whose history of the Peloponnesian War has long been a staple of international relations theorizing. When I first encountered him in the 1970s, his account of the conflict between Athens and Sparta—one a democracy at the head of an empire, the other an oligarchy leading an alliance of similar regimes—was regarded as the paradigm for understanding conflict in our bipolar Cold War world.
But the end of the Cold War meant neither the end of history nor the end of Thucydides, who claimed that his work was “a possession for all time,” to be consulted “by any who wish to look at the plain truth about both past events and those that at some future time, in accordance with human nature, will recur in similar or comparable ways.”
After September 11, we read Thucydides with an eye toward the deliberations a democracy undertakes when it prepares for war, focusing on the interplay of hot anger and cool reason, self-concern and self-forgetting, and the role of visionary leadership in balancing these forces. We asked whether and what George W. Bush could learn from the example of Pericles, who calmly led Athens into a war that he did not expect would end anytime soon.
But since March 2003, it has been hard to avoid thinking about the Sicilian Expedition, a bold or foolhardy (and disastrous) Athenian effort to open a new front before the conflict with Sparta had been decisively resolved. We haven’t, of course, been alone in thinking about the alleged parallel between the invasion of Sicily and the war in Iraq. In a column earlier this year, Arianna Huffington wrote about “the disastrous Sicilian Expedition,” marked by “Athenian warmongers” who “were convinced,” on the basis of “scant knowledge,” that “conquering Sicily would be a cakewalk.” Last year, playwright and journalist Barbara Garson wrote about the Expedition as a “sideshow that involved lying exiles, hopeful contractors, politicized intelligence, [and] a doctrine of preemption.”
And then there was University of Pennsylvania political scientist Anne Norton’s dark warning about the allegedly baleful influence of the neo-conservative students of Leo Strauss:
“The story of the Peloponnesian War, as Straussians once told it, was the story of a lovely arrogant city, gone down to ruin in the pursuit of empire. Athens, the free city, in love with novelty, is led astray by an errant student of Socrates. He offers Athens the temptations of imperial power. Athens falls, and the shame of the Melian dialogues, the suffering of its prisoners in the quarry, plague, and ruin fall upon it in return. This was the story as Straussians told it in my time. They tell it differently now. We are on the Sicilian Expedition.”
I like my history a little more complicated and a little less simply edifying.
Huffington and Garson are surely right that Alcibiades, “the errant student of Socrates” and “warmonger,” seriously underestimated the challenge posed by the conquest of Sicily. And Norton is right that the Athenians were carried away by the prospect of conquest: “a passion for the Expedition afflicted everyone alike…[a]nd so, because of the extremes of eagerness among the majority, if anyone felt at all unhappy he was afraid of seeming unpatriotic by an opposing vote, and he kept quiet.”
But Thucydides presentation of the Expedition is far from a foredoomed failure, an act in some tragic morality play, or a just punishment for Athenian ignorance and hubris. Athens, he argues, could have succeeded in Sicily, but domestic political rivalries, driven in some measure by petty personal jealousies, deprived the Expedition of the leadership it needed. Alcibiades, “as a public person, managed the war with the utmost skill.” But his opponents, “as private individuals, detested him for his behavior, and by entrusting the city to others, they ruined it in short order.”
If I were to leave it here, I would be no better than the moralizing critics of the war in Iraq, simply counterposing my preferred prooftexts to theirs.
Fortunately, Thucydides offers us much richer materials for reflection about the interplay between domestic politics and foreign policy. When the war begins, Pericles, the preeminent Athenian statesman, counsels restraint. If we tend to the empire and undertake no new adventures, he says, we can prevail in a long war of attrition, as we can impose greater costs on the Peloponnesians than they can impose on us. This looks like sound advice, until you consider that it takes someone of Pericles’ stature to sustain such a policy, remaining calm, unruffled, in control, and influential as public opinion varies with the vicissitudes of war. Not surprisingly, Pericles’ policy requires a Pericles at the helm.
But since he was already an old man at the outset of the war, it was imprudent of him to expect to see it through to its conclusion. As it happened, he died relatively early in the war, when a plague ravaged Athens. His successors quite predictably lacked his stature and hence his capacity to pursue a consistently restrained policy.
For all his judgment, foresight, and clarity, Pericles didn’t consider what would happen after his death. Had he done so, he might have been willing to undertake a risk—like the Sicilian Expedition—that would have so changed the constellation of forces as to bring the war to a successful conclusion. Unlike the frankly ambitious and flamboyant Alcibiades, Pericles could likely have fended off the domestic challengers who undermined the Expedition’s prospects of success. The Athenian Empire would have weathered this challenge, falling not to the Spartans and their allies, but later to the Macedonians or the Romans.
What can we take away from this aspect of Thucydides’ story? In the first place, we can be reminded how hard it is for a democracy to conduct a consistent long-term policy. Public opinion varies with the fortunes of war, unreasonably inflated when things appear to be going well and unreasonably deflated when things appear to be going badly. Almost always ill-informed and concerned above all with their own affairs, people can also be flattered and misled by politicians, who can gain influence and power by promoting a change that only they can bring about. In the ordinary course of things, as one leader supplants another, policies will change, for good reasons and ill.
The appropriate response to this feature of democratic political life is neither to surrender to the game nor to envy the tyrants who can hold power for the long term without paying attention to what people think, but to seize the opportunities for bold action when they present themselves. By acting boldly, a leader can change the constellation of forces to which his or her successors must respond, either forcing upon them a consistency to which they otherwise wouldn’t be inclined or forthrightly addressing challenges with respect to which they would be tempted to temporize.
In all of this, Thucydides cautions, we should not expect perfection, either in the information leaders have or in the motives that animate them. Even good and admirable statesmen have their limitations. Every decent leader who marches across Thucydides’ stage is ambitious for honor, defining the public good in ways that he is (or considers himself) uniquely suited to promote. If I have a hammer, then our most pressing problem must require a nail. This is not to say that it’s impossible to distinguish between public service and naked, narrow ambition, just that we shouldn’t, in Thucydides’ view, expect the public servant to be a paragon of utterly selfless virtue.
In the end, Iraq may well be our Sicilian Expedition—but not in the ways the war’s most vehement critics suggest. We are in the midst of a long-term war on terrorism, with no guarantee that we can or will pursue a policy that is consistent and coherent until its conclusion. Why not boldly open a new theater of conflict if it can either hasten the resolution of the war on terror or limit the opportunity of successors lightly to change policies?
Of course, Thucydides also reminds us of another important domestic element in the conduct of foreign policy. People are much more likely to support vigorous action if they are genuinely convinced of the justice of their cause. Naked ambition and aggression will not do. This does not mean that right and wrong are easy to discern or that anyone’s motives are pure and simple. But Thucydidean realism demands that we make the effort at discernment, and that our leaders take the task of justification seriously.
The debate over Iraq can be waged over the justice and prudence of the war. Thucydides is a source of uncomfortable questions and hard lessons for both sides. If we take our responsibility seriously, we won’t dodge them.
Joseph M. Knippenberg is a professor of politics and associate provost for student achievement at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia. He blogs at No Left Turns.
Best statement of what the Bush admin has been trying to do, both in foreign affairs (Iraq) and domestically (tax cuts, social security). And that's why his political opponents are screaming so loudly.
One thing the author could have dwelt on a bit more is the parallels between the Athenian political infighting, and what's going on here.
There's one fascinating story of Athens deciding to destroy some offending city. They debated it for a while, then sent off a fleet of ships to do the deed. After a short time they decided to spare the city after all, and sent off a second set of ships to overtake and stop the first fleet. And then they changed their minds yet again, and duly dispatched a third set of ships to overtake the second, and get everybody headed back to destroy the offending city ... which they did.
The debates that led to these decisions make for an interesting read -- they're symptomatic of a polity that has no clear direction, and no ability to understand long-term effects before they undertook an action.
A parallel of sorts can be seen by the recent "where's our exit strategy" yapping of people like Russ Feingold. The exit strategy is obvious and in work, and Feingold's mainly just expressing his worries of the moment, and not looking at long-term effects of his statements.
Well, yes, but consider also the comment that the only thing wrong with Pericles' plan, was that it took Pericles to execute it. When Pericles was gone.... And note that Bush is gone in 3 years.
Bush is doing the right thing in Iraq. The question is: will his successor be able to continue doing the right thing? The screaming of his opponents will be deafening during the next election season. Will the electorate be able to look past it?
Bush's strategy for the next three years must be to clarify what's at stake, and why a war against terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere is worth waging. It most certainly is -- but the MSM and the likes of Cindy Sheehan are working overtime to convince us otherwise.
One thing the author could have dwelt on a bit more is the parallels between the Athenian political infighting, and what's going on here.
Just one? Your getting soft on us! :-)
I'm reading Victor davis Hanson's new book on the Peloponnesian War ("A War Like No Other"). One thing that struck me was it provides a cautionary tale for what we're doing now.
Thirty years from now, after we've started putting our reluctant allies to the sword and selling their women and children into slavery..... maybe then I'll see us becoming another faded Athens.
Hannibal took a force of 40,000 soldiers through Spain, Crossed the French Alps (losing half his forces in the process. A much riskier proposition than the Athenian invasion of Sicily.) and began the most brilliant military campaign in history. Hannibal won a series of battles against superior Roman forces culminating in the Battle of Cannae. Hannibal crushed the entire Roman army at Cannae, a victory that is still studied in Military schools across the world. At this point Hannibal seemed poised to enter and conquer Rome itself. BUT.....Carthage lost heart. The politicians and nobles of Carthage got to bickering and arguing and Hannibal's support from his home country dwindled to nothing. Because of this, Hannibal was chased out of Italy and Rome invaded and utterly destroyed Carthage.
I believe there is a lesson here on the failure to support your troops once military force has been initiated.
“The story of the Peloponnesian War, as Straussians once told it, was the story of a lovely arrogant city, gone down to ruin in the pursuit of empire. Athens, the free city, in love with novelty, is led astray by an errant student of Socrates. He offers Athens the temptations of imperial power. Athens falls, and the shame of the Melian dialogues, the suffering of its prisoners in the quarry, plague, and ruin fall upon it in return. This was the story as Straussians told it in my time. They tell it differently now. We are on the Sicilian Expedition.”
BS from alpha to omega.
I'm beginning to think that most of the people who spout off about Straussians never met one.
Thucy ping
The Sicilian expedition became the disaster it did because the Athenian general Nicias was indecisive, and failed to abandon the doomed siege of Syracuse when it was still possible to get the Athenian forces to safety. If Kerry had won in 2004 we would be facing a similar problem of having a leader who can't make up his mind.
Wasn't there a song about Thucydides?
Something about Thucydides in the Sky with Diamonds?? Gary Lewis and the Playboys, if memory serves.
Great Post! And a nostalgic reminder of War College days. Reading Thucydides is no cake walk (I've done it, but it hurts to think about doing it again), so its always refreshing to read a good analysis of his works.
"If we tend to the empire and undertake no new adventures, he says, we can prevail in a long war of attrition, as we can impose greater costs on the Peloponnesians than they can impose on us."
But piracy (which is what terrorism is) cannot be fought by attrition- the pirates can always impose the greater costs. The Pelopennesian War wasn't anything like the war on terror.
"Almost always ill-informed and concerned above all with their own affairs, people can also be flattered and misled by politicians [and media], who can gain influence and power by promoting a change that only they can bring about... "
However, some lessons are timeless.
Hansen has his columns in NR and elsewhere, they can be found HERE
Of course, we must be careful when evoking the past to make sense of the present. Many, for example, recently cited the Iraq war as the modern equivalent of the disastrous Sicilian expedition of 415-413 BC, when Athens lost most of its fleet by assaulting distant Syracuse. But Syracuse was democratic, larger than Athens and, until the invasion, mostly neutral during the Peloponnesian War. A more historically apt analogy to that expedition would be if the United States had attacked democratic India during the midst of the U.S. war against Al Qaeda.Study of the Peloponnesian War should also remind us that it is not assured that the wealthiest, most sophisticated and democratic state always triumphs over less impressive enemies. After all, Athens, for all its advantages, finally lost its war. And as Thucydides reminds us about the democratic empire's lapses, arrogance and major blunders, more often the chief culprit was its own infighting and internal discord than the prowess of its many enemies.
They still almost got away with it.
I can't think of an American equivalent to Alcibiades in 415 B.C.--someone who pushed for the war and then was one of the commanding generals in the actual operations. Was there any one individual who particularly sawyed Bush to go to war? Paul Bremer's task in Iraq didn't have much in common with any of the Athenian generals of 415-413 in Sicily.
If you think Thucydides is difficult in English, try reading him in Greek. The ancient historian and literary critic Dionysius of Halicarnassus, whose native language was Greek, admitted that there were passages in Thucydides that no one could make sense of without a commentary.
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