America's Foreign Policy Power Is Changing Under Trump

At a baffling moment full of Russian intrigue, made-for-reality-TV summitry, presidential Twitter rants, and trade wars, history can offer perspective, if not comfort. The ancient Greeks often understood our world more clearly than we do. Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta, many modern scholars now recognize, was intended as a work of Greek tragedy. It provides a morality play for the ages, offering insights into the foreign-policy challenges facing the United States in the years ahead, even after Donald Trump’s presidency.

Athens, the protagonist, is a state like the United States founded on virtuous principles. As its wealth and power grow, however, it seeks to extend its influence beyond its borders. Then, at the height of that power, following the rule of Pericles, not only does Athens begin to lose its democratic character, but it so outstrips others in its military might that it no longer feels bound by the moral values and sense of community that held the ancient Greek world together.

As in any Greek tragedy, Athens eventually falls prey to moral hubris and overreaches. In one of Thucydides’ more memorable examples, its navy surrounds the small island of Melos and demands its allegiance. The outnumbered Melians famously protest that when it comes to matters of war and peace, “the strong do what they can; the weak what they must.”

For generations of students of foreign policy, the line has been used to demonstrate how circumscribed moral choice is in an anarchical world. However, Thucydides perhaps wants us to understand as well that for the stronger power “can” differs from “must” in that it does afford some room for moral judgment.

The Athenians, though, prove deaf to the Melians’ pleas for mercy. When the Melians ultimately surrender, the Athenians are unsparing in victory and slaughter all the male inhabitants, while selling the women and children into slavery. After a number of other acts of barbarity, the Athenians not only lose their moral standing and leadership of the ancient Greek world, but eventually the war.