“When a special forces unit of the U.S. military captured the Venezuelan president in his own country on January 3rd, CDU politician Peter Altmaier remarked on X: 'The USA has the best army in the world. Yet we find ourselves back at Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue: between states, it is not law that decides, but power and force. Ukraine, Taiwan, and Greenland will feel the impact. We are powerless.'” "The world knows it." The classical philologist Gyburg Uhlmann had already compared the interrogation of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy by Trump and Vance in the Oval Office to the Melian Dialogue (F.A.Z., March 5, 2025). Nevertheless, even readers with a passion for antiquity might ask themselves: Must ancient Athens really be pressed into service as a backdrop for the modern United States as well—especially after comparisons between Trump and Roman emperors quickly reached their limits (F.A.Z., January 12)?
Melos, a Spartan colony, had maintained its neutrality during the Peloponnesian War. It was the only island in the Cyclades that was not a member of the Delian League. In 416 BC—according to Thucydides’ account—an Athenian delegation arrived in Melos and demanded that the island join the League; the Melians refused, viewing such a step as a voluntary act of submission that would be both unjust and dishonorable.
In response, the Athenians argued that justice could only apply between parties of equal strength; where power dynamics are unequal, the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. When the Melians refused to yield, the Athenians laid siege to the city. Due to an act of betrayal, Melos was forced to capitulate.
The Athenians executed all the male citizens.
Now, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Canadian Prime Minister cited this juxtaposition of the strong who act and the weak who suffer. He noted that this "aphorism of Thucydides" is often presented as "inevitable"—though by this, the former central banker—educated at Harvard and Oxford—referred not to the classical quotation itself, but rather to the dilemma it describes. Carney appealed to his audience to resist this suggestion that there is no alternative.
Niall Ferguson—the historian of the rise and fall of great powers, financial systems, and civilizations—has identified this current chapter of reception of antiquity, which he mockingly recounted in his Davos report for the online newspaper "The Free Press" (F.A.Z., January 26). The leading proponents of Greenland remaining with Denmark—Carney and French President Macron—had, he argued, spoken like the Melians, yet achieved only a hollow victory. Trump, he claimed, had not been interested in Greenland at all; rather, his adversaries, through their moralistic protests, had effectively ratified the destruction of the rules. Carney, it seemed, had been unable to avoid the aphorism after all. Rhetorically, Ferguson asked his readers: "Do you see?" "Thucydides was in Davos before Trump."
He had also already been to Washington. Key advisors from Trump’s first term repeatedly invoked the Athenian historian. Both Steve Bannon and Herbert Raymond McMaster—National Security Advisor from February 2017 to April 2018—emphasized the lessons that *The History of the Peloponnesian War* still holds for us today. In doing so, they drew upon a long-standing tradition in political theory.
Since the time of Hans Joachim Morgenthau, proponents of political realism have derived the laws of power politics from Thucydides. In this vein, Ferguson has recently observed that the Melian Dialogue is widely regarded as the origin of the dichotomy between idealism and realism in international relations.
In 2017, Graham Allison, a political scientist at Harvard, warned in a book about the "Thucydides Trap" in the relationship between the United States and China. Just as Athens' rise to power instilled fear in the Spartans—making a war between the two powers inevitable—a similar escalation is to be feared today, as China's ambitions are causing alarm in America. Allison maintains excellent connections within the political sphere and is frequently spotted at the White House.
The influence of this *realpolitik* interpretation of Thucydides was already clearly evident during the Gulf Wars. The decision-makers and their advisors repeatedly cited Thucydides to justify their interventions—or rather, a *pseudo*-Thucydides: for the maxim frequently quoted by Colin Powell during his tenure as Secretary of State—and even displayed as an inscription on his desk—namely, "Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most," does not originate in *The History of the Peloponnesian War*, but rather in *A History of Greek Literature* by Frank Byron Jevons, published in 1886.
Thucydides promises his readers a "possession for all time"—a work useful to anyone "who desires to understand clearly what has happened, and thereby what will happen again in the future, since human nature ensures that events will, once more or will be similar." Is—as political realists contend—the realization of the "right of the stronger" the very insight Thucydides promises as the ultimate yield of history? By isolating individual statements made by specific characters, they merely scratch the surface of Thucydides' understanding of history. Against the Athenians' arguments grounded in power politics, the Melians counter not only with the principle of justice but also with the concept of mutual benefit. Above all, Thucydides interprets history by juxtaposing speeches and deeds, plans and outcomes. The actual unfolding of events serves as the ultimate test for the positions articulated by the various speakers. The verdict on the Athenian ideology of power is damning: their ruthless pursuit of hegemony ultimately leads Athens to capitulation. Anyone who mistakes the assertions of individual characters for Thucydides' own stance commits a hermeneutic fallacy; furthermore, by deriving a doctrine of unvarnished power politics as a normative guide for action from *The History of the Peloponnesian War*, they grotesquely misinterpret the work's central message. Does the world know this? Perhaps—and quite possibly with greater precision than is often assumed.
Reinhart Koselleck has demonstrated how the modern concept of history undermined the traditional *topos* of history as the "teacher of life." Interestingly, Koselleck repeatedly cited the Melian Dialogue whenever he reflected upon the phenomenon of historical recurrence. He argued that both Emil Hácha in Berlin in 1939 and Alexander Dubček in Moscow in 1968 found themselves in a position analogous to that of the Melians, consciously choosing to submit—a decision which, "as events would subsequently prove, came at the cost of their very lives."
While Koselleck grounds his comparison in recurring structural possibilities, Thucydides proceeds from the premise of a fixed and immutable human nature. Nevertheless, he already issues a caveat against drawing overly hasty conclusions from history: the future will not be identical to the past, but will—at most—be "of a similar nature and character." Although Thucydides does indeed draw comparisons - explicitly [compares] the Peloponnesian War with the Trojan War in order to emphasize its surpassing magnitude and significance; yet he suggests historical parallels in a subtle manner, rather than asserting them with the crude bluntness of self-styled realists.”
1. Zitate zur Hand, weiße Fahne in der Kiepe: Weiß die Welt wirklich von Thukydides, dass der Verächter des Rechts Sieger bleibt? Der Melierdialog und die Illusionen des Realismus. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Frankfurt. 28 Jan 2026: N3. JONAS GRETHLEIN
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