Posted on 06/22/2017 5:13:33 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Trump administration officials are seeking insight into U.S.-China relations from an unlikely source – the ancient Greek historian Thucydides who chronicled the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta.
Michael Crowley reports in Politico Magazine that Professor Graham Allison of the Harvard Kennedy School met with Trump’s National Security Council staffers last month to discuss the “Thucydides Trap” – a term he coined to explain how the fear of an emerging power can spark conflict with an established power. In Thucydides’ telling, “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.”
According to Crowley, the Thucydides enthusiasts in Trump’s White House include chief strategist Steve Bannon, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton (who during the 2016 campaign wrote in the Journal of American Greatness under the pen name “Publius Decimus Mus”). Bannon, Crowley notes, once penned an op-ed for Breitbart comparing “the conservative media rivalry between Breitbart and Fox News to the Peloponnesian War, casting Breitbart as the disciplined warrior state of Sparta challenging a decadently Athenian Fox.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Gee... Use history as a guide to our policy decisions.
What a radical idea. /S
China is now unified and within it reside about half the population of Asia. Like the Middle Kingdom before it ,it views itself and the dominant, central power of Asia. Yet like the Middle Kingdom it has its own inherent problems and meets a natural formidable resistance from other Asians when it overextends itself. Frankly now as then ,it will be up to the Asians themselves to work out a reasonable consensus. American involvement is foolish. It is not likely to be effective and historically does nothing for the security of the American people but inevitably creates long term bitter enemies and resentments.
The odd thing about this ‘Greek-history-lesson’ is that a hundred years ago...it would have been discussed in a university class as standard lecture, along with Roman-history. Educated gentlemen would have sat around and discussed the topic with a cigar in one hand and a whiskey in the other.
I was hoping Trump would address this issue. China is rising power and we need to address the issue
Every day, Trump seems to find a new way to impress me. I’m am not tired of winning yet. If the US survives as a Republic, it will largely be Trump’s doing.
Yes, using history as a guide rather than deciding based on what looks good on the evening news or who pays you the most money
A radical idea indeed
Dems want to destroy history - US civil war, 100+ years of Democratic position on slavery and blacks, failure of communist states, Islamic invasions, etc.
Trump wants to learn from it.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
Thucydides is especially beloved by the two most influential figures on Trump’s foreign policy team. National security adviser H.R. McMaster has called Thucydides’ work an “essential” military text, taught it to students and quoted from it in speeches and op-eds. Defense Secretary James Mattis is also fluent in Thucydides’ work: “If you say to him, ‘OK, how about the Melian Dialogue?’ he could tell you exactly what it is,” Allison says—referring to one particularly famous passage. When former Defense Secretary William Cohen introduced him at his confirmation hearing, Cohen said Mattis was likely the only person present “who can hear the words ‘Thucydides Trap’ and not have to go to Wikipedia to find out what it means.”That’s not true in the Trump White House, where another Peloponnesian War aficionado can be found in the office of chief strategist Steve Bannon. A history buff fascinated with grand conflict, Bannon once even used “Sparta”—one of the most militarized societies history has known—as a computer password.
*snip*
“Most people in Washington have almost no historical memory or grounding,” Allison says. “Mattis reads a lot of books. McMaster can quote more central lines from more books than anybody I know. And Bannon reads a huge amount of history. So I think this is an unusual configuration.”
Of interest.
We need to get this China stuff right.
It is unlikely that we’ll be destroyed from without, but more likely we’ll be destroyed by the rot from within.
A balance needs to be struck between treasonously accelerating China’s rise (Clinton most favored nation status, Loral Aerospace & military tech) and aggressively challenging them in areas where it would make sense to leave them alone.
Essentially the Melian dialogue was one of the central themes in “Cloud Atlas” movie: “The weak are meat and the strong do eat” was Cloud Atlas’s version of it.
It is great for our leaders to be grounded in history, rather than socialist ideology.
Trump has an extensive and successful grounding in business.
Obama had an extensive grounding in community organizing and smoking dope when he became president.
After the "Those guys are weak and will never fight Us" scenario (Japan in 1941), the "We must react to the emerging threat" scenario is probably the leading cause of wars, from the Peloponnesian War, throughout Roman history, up to Hitler and Barbarosa.
Better to consult history than his kid like Jimmah did.
One of the great honors of my life was to be invited the George W Bush’s White House to discuss war & history. John Keegan & Victor Davis Hanson & two others were there. Bush asked excellent questions.
Exactly. This is either a leak, fake news, misinformation, or foolish.
I thought everyone in the Trump Administration were clowns, stupid, unable to read and wouldn’t even know what a Greek classic was.
Here's a hint; buy off the war lords and GTFO.
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