Athenian America?

In his WorldNet Daily column on August 4, 2008, Vox Day wrote about The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides and how it may presage the fate of America's present global hegemony. The column comes at the conclusion of a three month-long guided reading of Thucydides (specifically, the Landmark version of The History of the Peloponnesian War) that Day himself led and that I covertly participated in. Day writes thusly about the course and adds a couple of observations:

During the last three months, about 30 amateur armchair historians and I have been methodically working our way together through the eight books of "The Landmark Thucydides," a beautiful edition that quite credibly bills itself as the comprehensive guide to "The History of the Peloponnesian War" recounted by Thucydides. (If you're interested in testing your knowledge of the classic conflict, you can do so here.) Throughout the course of the study, two things became apparent:

1. Politics and politicians have changed surprisingly little in the last 2,440 years. With a few minor adjustments, some of the speeches made by men such as Themistocles, Cleon and Alcibiades could be given by Gordon Brown, John McCain, and Barack Obama today and it would be unlikely that a single journalist would even notice anything unusual.

2. War leads to unpredictable changes taking place in the warring parties. These changes are seldom for the better.

I agree with Day's observations here, for as I noted in a previous entry, societies may change but human nature rarely, if ever, does.

As for human nature and mankind's predilection for warfare, Thucydides knew well that the most basic motivations for the Athenians going to war were not rooted in such lofty conceits as making the world "safe for democracy," as Woodrow Wilson would justify America's entry into the First World War more than two millennia later. Rather, in Book One (1.76) of his History, Thucydides recounts a speech by Athenian envoys to the Spartan assembly, noting the true motivations of human warfare:

You, at all events, Spartans, have used your supremacy to settle the states in the Peloponnesus as is agreeable to you. And if at the period of which we were speaking you had persevered to the end of the matter, and had incurred hatred in your command, we are sure that you would have made yourselves just as galling to the allies, and would have been forced to choose between a strong government and a danger to yourselves. It follows that it was not a very remarkable action, or contrary to the common practice of mankind, if we did accept an empire that was offered to us, and refused to give it up under the pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honor, and [self-]interest. And it was not we who set the example, for it has always been the law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger.

Fear, honor, and self-interest – or as the Greeks would have put it: phobos, doxa, kerdos. Those are the basic motivations of all mankind, a fact duly noted in this outstanding essay by author Dan Simmons two years ago.

Returning to the column in question, Day notes a seemingly disturbing parallel between the modern United States and ancient Athens on the matter of finances:

The Athenians considered themselves more than equal to the numerous Peloponnesians because their allies in the Delian League were "contributing" 600 silver talents a year to Athens, which by today's prices was equal to around $9.2 million. This funded a 250-ship fleet which no other Greek city could think to match. The United States presently enjoys a similarly powerful military based on air and sea supremacy that is funded by a public debt of $9.6 trillion, a significant percentage of which is owed to China, Russia and unnamed "oil exporters."

The American situation doesn't quite mirror that of Athens, as the debt owed to China, Russia and others is credit that was voluntarily extended to the US or assumed from previous creditors. I'm not certain how much of an Achilles heel the public debt truly is, for it seems that in the past quarter-century dire predictions have been issued on the basis of our enormous debt, but none have panned out. I don't dismiss Day's point on this matter, but I am skeptical.

As for the oft-stated American goal of spreading democracy:

Of course, all of the ominous parallels between latter-day Athens and America notwithstanding, it must be admitted that history seldom repeats itself with any great degree of precision. It is said to rhyme, however, and there can be no doubt that while America attempts to sponsor democracy in the autocratic Middle East, America's European allies are moving away from democracy and toward oligarchy in much the same way that formerly democratic Athenian allies in Samos, Mytilene, Corcyra and Chios did. As America attempt to forcibly install democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, it has all but vanished in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and 21 other member states of the European Union, in which only the citizens of Ireland are permitted a voice in their own governance.

The post-Cold War transformation of the European Union from a loose economic association to a burgeoning, intrusive, bureaucratic behemoth is indeed ominous. Given the arrogant manner in which Eurocrats have responded to the various "No" votes to the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties, it is becoming ever more obvious that the intent behind the creation of the EU is not to create a democratic hegemon, but something of an authoritarian oligarchy. Looking at it that way, Tom Kratman's Carrera series may prove quite prescient.

Concluding his comparison of modern America with ancient Athens, Day rites:

The lessons of history suggest that America's ongoing Arabian Expedition will not only have the effect of degrading the American military, harming the U.S. economy and increasing fuel prices, but it could very well wind up causing significant changes in the system of American government. Of course, it's worth noting one major difference between the two invasions: Unlike the Athenians, Americans never voted to wage this war.

By slipping in a sly analogy between our adventures in the Middle East and the failed Syracuse Expedition of Athens, Day is on shaky ground. As Victor Davis Hanson noted in a reply to Pat Buchanan (concerning Buchanan's latest book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War – reviewed on this blog last month), the only way in which the analogy would work would be if the Unites States had deployed its forces not to Afghanistan and Iraq, but to democratic India for the purpose of taking control of that country. Syracuse was not a neglected backwater like contemporary Afghanistan or a failed authoritarian republic like Iraq, but rather a democracy like Athens with significant allies of its own.

Also, there is the matter of Day asserting that Americans did not vote to wage the current war in the Middle East. That is true, but when have Americans ever voted en masse for a war? If America's government functioned like that of ancient Athens, his point would make more sense.

Despite the points of disagreement with Day in comparing the Peloponnesian War with America's campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, I believe he is essentially correct in trying to understand the problems that Athens faced over 2, 400 years ago in light of present-day geopolitics. As a rule, most historians (myself included) try to avoid doing so for fear of committing "presentism" – failing to understand the past on its own terms and imagining that human society now is essentially the same as in the past. For purposes of understanding human nature, though, applying the lessons of the past to the present is essential, and from Thucydides one can learn how hubris may effectively undermine even mighty, prosperous, and seemingly stable nations.