In a book published in France in 2019, American academic Graham T. Allison analyzed what he called “Thucydides’ trap” : when two powers, one dominant and the other rising, face each other, there is a high risk that it will end in war. This is exactly what happened between Sparta, the dominant power, and Athens, the rising power, almost 2,500 years ago : war. “The real, but unacknowledged, cause was, in my opinion,” wrote Thucydides, « the power that the Athenians had attained and the fear that they inspired in the Lacedaemonians, which compelled the latter to war. » (1) The trap had closed on the two main Greek cities, dragging them into an exhausting and suicidal war that lasted almost 30 years, from 431 to 404 BC. Allison uses this historical precedent (and fifteen others that he analyzes in his book) to describe the disturbing rivalry between the United States, the dominant power, and China, the rising power.
Although comparisons are not always valid, the account of the Peloponnesian War contains another lesson for the present day, which could be called “Thucydides’ second trap”: the trap of egalitarian passion. In our opinion (our’s, not Thucydides’), it was egalitarian passion that led Athens to defeat and surrender. Defeated once and for all in 404 BC, the Athenians were forced to destroy the “long walls” that protected their city and its port of Piraeus, to the humiliating sound of flutes, and Sparta imposed a tyrannical regime on them : a pitiful end to the famous Athenian democracy, even if, a few years later, it recovered, albeit weakly, before succumbing once again and definitively to Philip of Macedon, the invader from the north and father of Alexander, and finally becoming a vassal of Rome.
For reflection and enjoyment, let us descend into the depths of 5th-century BC Athens, the Athens whose regime Pericles described in his funeral oration for the first casualties of the Peloponnesian War: « Our political constitution is in no way inferior to the laws that govern our neighbors. (…) Because the state is administered in the interests of the masses and not of a minority, our regime has taken the name of democracy. » After these words, Pericles died some time later, a victim of the scorched earth strategy that he himself had advocated. As the Spartan army was unbeatable on land, he had ordered all the inhabitants of Attica to abandon the countryside and take refuge behind the city walls, leaving the Spartan army to roam a deserted province. A huge crowd gathered in Athens, and the inevitable happened: an epidemic broke out, which eventually claimed the life of Pericles himself.
Unfortunately, the democratic regime praised by Pericles also contained within it the seeds of its own destruction: egalitarian fervor, just as the scorched earth strategy proved fatal to its proponent. Fifteen years later, the war was still raging and democracy was still alive and well in Athens. But there was one man who stood out: Alcibiades. The trap of egalitarian passion then inexorably closed in on him and on Athens, depriving it of its only talented commander. It should be noted that this interpretation of Athens’ defeat is not that of contemporary doxa, since the latter is still dominated, not to say eaten away and devoured, by the same egalitarian passion that prevailed in Athens in the 5th century BCE. According to this persistent orthodoxy, it was, on the contrary, the consuming ambition of one man, Alcibiades, and then his betrayal, that caused the fall of Athens. See, for example, the biography of Alcibiades by the ever-uncontested Jacqueline de Romilly.
An orphan, Alcibiades was the adopted son of Pericles. He was brilliant, to the point that Socrates became infatuated with him while he was still a teenager. Too brilliant: he was quickly suspected of impiety. He was rich. Too rich: this made people jealous. He had to justify himself. He did so in a speech to the assembled people, transcribed by Thucydides. It’s a bit long, but worth a look: “Everything that is said against me is precisely what makes up the reputation of my ancestors and myself and the advantage of my country,” he pleaded. Indeed, if the Greeks have exaggerated the power of Athens, it is because they were dazzled by the splendor of my participation in the Olympic Games. They, who expected to see this power destroyed by war, saw me field seven chariots. No private individual had ever done so much. (…) Within the city, I made myself famous through my Choregies and other events which, naturally, inspired envy in my fellow citizens, but which are a sign of power in the eyes of foreigners. So much so that this folly of which I am accused is not without its uses, since it serves both the interests of the city and my own. «
When Alcibiades utters these words to defend himself against accusations that he is only pursuing his own interests in the expedition in question, the war has been raging for some fifteen years, with ups and downs and even truces. Alcibiades, who was only a child when it broke out, then proposed to the Athenians that they strike Sparta with a bold but potentially decisive blow: the invasion of Sicily. Sicily was Sparta’s breadbasket. No more wheat, no more power: that was the plan. But to carry it out, a considerable naval expedition had to be mounted. Alcibiades won the day, on condition, the assembly specified, that he share command of the armada with a certain Nicias, who was reluctant but had experience, and a third commander, no doubt to break any ties between the other two in case of conflict.
Soon, everything was ready. It was unprecedented. The equivalent, for the time, of the Allied landing fleet: « a total of one hundred and thirty-four triremes and two penteconters from Rhodes; the Athenians had provided one hundred triremes, including sixty cruisers; the others were used to transport soldiers”. But just before departure, something extremely serious for the time happened: « most of the stone Hermes statues in Athens had their faces mutilated. These are quadrangular figures which, according to custom, are placed in large numbers in the vestibules of private houses and in front of temples. No one knew who was responsible for this misdeed. The state promised a large sum of money to anyone who could find the culprits (…). The incident had considerable repercussions; it was seen as an omen for the expedition and attributed to a revolutionary conspiracy to overthrow the state and abolish democratic government. »
There was a perfect scapegoat: the insolent, impious, excessively wealthy Alcibiades, who had only moderate faith in democracy and yet had been given joint command of the greatest naval expedition of the time, no doubt to increase his own fortune rather than to defend the interests of the city. The “gossips” he referred to in his defense managed to make their accusation credible, albeit with some testimony that was, if not false, at least dubious. Alcibiades protested his innocence, but the damage was done, the stain was indelible. The assembly decided, however, to let him lead the expedition: they would try him upon his return. The departure therefore took place, despite the scandal.
So here we have the Athenian armada off Syracuse, organizing a blockade and preparing for an assault. Meanwhile, in Athens, the egalitarian gossips gossip so much that they eventually persuade the assembly to try Alcibiades without delay, contrary to what had been agreed. A fast ship is sent to Sicily with orders to bring him back to Athens, by force if necessary. Alcibiades does not refuse to comply. But at the first port of call, he takes flight, guessing the fate that would await him at the end of the trial: a death sentence immediately followed by execution (no doubt provisional!). It is true that, while on the run, he immediately entered the service of Sparta, patriotism being a rather vague concept at the time.
Before Syracuse, the two commanders-in-chief who remained at the head of the hundred Athenian ships, deprived of Alcibiades’ decisiveness, hesitated and procrastinated, and when they attacked, it was too late: it was a disaster. The fleet is destroyed, and 40,000 soldiers are killed or enslaved. Will Athens recover? Yes, but poorly. A few more years of bad decisions, and Athenian democracy will be no more.
Okay, but what about Netanyahu in all this?
Prosecuted by his country’s justice system for several years, Netanyahu has not, however, taken flight like Alcibiades. After winning seven wars, including a daring air expedition against Iran, and even though he lost one in the media, the longest and most perilous one in Gaza, he is once again required to attend his trial at the Tel Aviv District Court three times a week. At the height of the Gaza war, it was only reluctantly that the judges agreed to loosen the judicial stranglehold that forced the prime minister and head of the war cabinet to appear in court several times a week to answer questions from the judges. The charges, labeled 1000, 2000, and 4000, are either frivolous or absurd, especially in light of the threats facing Israel. For example, he is accused of attempting—attempting, not succeeding—to reach an agreement with the country’s leading daily newspaper, Yediot Aharonot: favorable coverage in exchange for administrative obstacles for a competing free newspaper. An agreement that, in any case, never saw the light of day. The other illegal press agreement that the Israeli courts are accusing him of—favorable coverage of a website in exchange for regulatory advantages for the owner—Netanyahu apparently considered… Let’s not mention the cigars and champagne that Donald Trump, who knows a thing or two about bogus lawsuits, mocked before the Knesset in an “intolerable” interference in Israel’s internal affairs.
Hamas has not yet returned all the bodies of the dead hostages, but the sessions have resumed, and with renewed vigor. Any resemblance to a historical situation of yesteryear is obviously not coincidental. Israeli society, so proud of being the only democracy in the region, risks falling into Thucydides’ second trap: that of egalitarian passion.
This second “Thucydides trap” can be deadly. Let us allow the democracy expert Alexis de Tocqueville to conclude: “Democratic peoples want equality in freedom,” he noted, « and if they cannot obtain it, they still want it in servitude. » Let us add, with a dismayed question mark: equality at any price, even that of defeat?
1- All quotations, except the last one, are from Thucydides’ “The Peloponnesian War.” Translated by Jean Voilquin
© Julien Brünn
Journalist. Former correspondent in Israel for the french TV TF1
Latest book published :
L’origine démocratique des génocides. Peuples génocidaires, élites suicidaires. L’harmattan. 2024