Do the Strong Suffer When They Do What They Want?

The early days of Donald Trump’s presidency have featured a series of clashes with allies and other states. The first real squall between Trump and an ally was the notably ‘fiery’ dialogue with the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen regarding the acquisition / hostile takeover of Greenland, a contretemps that was described by senior European political figures as “horrendous” and “potentially very dangerous.” The exchange between the two premiers set an early marker of Trump’s determination to assert the dominance of America over its allies. Shaken by the discussion with the newly re-elected President, the dialogue caused alarm across NATO and the EU. The Danes, it has been reported, were “utterly freaked out” by Trump’s aggressive style of diplomacy. Canada has also been alarmed by the unique diplomatic stylings of Mr. Trump, who has imposed and suspended tariffs on one of its closest allies and even proposed that its northern neighbour be subsumed into the USA. The extraordinary recent encounter in the White House between Trump, J.D. Vance and Volodymyr Zelinsky, however, marks the culmination (to date) of the effort to cow and browbeat allies perceived to be weak to assert the dominance of U.S. power over what seem to be regarded as client states rather than allies as such.

Difficult conversations between states in which the powerful assert their will over the less powerful are not uncommon in international politics. The paradigmatic case, often referenced by scholars and diplomats alike, is the Melian Dialogue as recounted by the Greek historian Thucydides in his account of the Peloponnesian War. Seeking to persuade the Melians to join their alliance against the Spartans, the Athenian delegates counter the refusal of the small island’s representatives to conform with Athen’s wishes with a chilling threat that unless they comply, they will kill all the men and enslave the women and children of Melos. “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” opine the Athenians, confident that the Melians will be persuaded of the incontrovertible logic of their position. Like the Danes, the Melians were not a little freaked out by the Athenians but resolved to remain neutral despite the overwhelming power of Athens. The Athenians, upon learning that the Melians would not accede to their demands proceeded to carry out their threat. The Athenians spent the rest of the war acting according to the maxim that the strong do what they can or what they want to do in relation to neutral, belligerent. and allied states alike.

Trump’s repeated insistence that Ukraine has “no cards” without America and that the Ukrainians must accept that their fate is dependent on American power and continued good will echoes the Athenian demand that the Melians had no choice but to do as the greater power insisted.  The thrust of Trump’s argument is that the Ukrainians must accommodate themselves to America’s preferences in relation to the war or face destruction. America, like fifth century Athens, is a powerful state whose will must be obeyed by those who have less power than it possesses: if America wishes there to be a ceasefire, Ukraine should comply. Unlike the Athenians in relation to the Melians, the USA will not be the agent of Ukraine’s destruction, but they will not prevent what they regard as an inevitable and crushing defeat unless Ukraine obeys its will. At the heart of both the Athenian and Trump’s demands is the denial of real agency to weaker states and the assertion of dominance by the stronger.

Most contemporary accounts of the Melian Dialogue terminate with an invitation to admire or condemn the ruthless ‘realism’ of the Athenians. More familiarity with Thucydides’ text, however, reveals a more complicated, richer set of lessons that Americans, their rivals, and their allies would be well advised to heed. The key to unlocking the maxim that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must lies in asking the question: is the position of the Athenian envoys at Melos representative of Thucydides’ work as a whole? Are we really meant to infer from Thucydides that the behaviour of the Athenians is simply the way of things in relations between weak and powerful states; that Denmark, for example, should heed the lessons of Melos and capitulate lest it incur the cost of defying a superior power and that the USA, like Athens, need not concern itself with trifles such as Danish sovereignty over Greenland? Or that Ukraine should capitulate to the USA and accept whatever deal Trump can agree with Vladimir Putin?

Reading the Melian dialogue in context reveals that these are not the lessons that Thucydides wants us to draw; aspiring Realists must dig deeper and wider into The History of the Peloponnesian War to reap the benefits of Thucydides’ analysis. The first thing the reader must acknowledge is that the ruthless, power-worshipping Athenians lost the war, and Thucydides attributes their defeat in no small part to the mentality displayed at Melos. Led by the rich, charismatic and mercurial Alcibiades, the ascendent faction that the Athenian envoys represented – the war party – was convinced that Athens’ wealth and power made them invincible. If their allies chafed against greater demands for more material and material support then Athenian power in its many forms could be employed to bring them to heel.

The Athenian position at Melos deviated significantly from the strategy offered by Pericles, their leader at the start of the war and identified by Thucydides (albeit not without caveat) as one of the great statesmen of the age. Pericles’ advice to his fellow citizens on how to manage other states, especially allies, should attract at least as much attention as the Melian Dialogue from the contemporary reader of Thucydides. Pericles counselled that Athens should not overextend its imperial ambitions or engage in excessive risks while engaged in what he advised should be a short and limited war with Sparta. Allies were to be treated as well as possible as they were a valuable resource when facing rival powers. Athens’ tragedy for Thucydides is that it did not heed Pericles’ advice. Intoxicated by the power and hubris they displayed at Melos, Athenian overconfidence resulted in a series of disastrous missteps that led to war not only with Sparta, but also Sicily and the Persian Empire.the end of the war, Athens had alienated many of its allies, some of whom were in open revolt. Thucydides’ lesson is that adopting the maxim that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” ultimately led to the unravelling of Athenian strength and to a crushing defeat from which the city never recovered. The surviving Melians, Xenophon tells us, were restored to their island by the victorious Spartans after the war.

By acting without prudence and moderation, and by alienating their allies, the Athenians learned the hard way that simply possessing power is not a panacea and that the strong can suffer the effects of their actions as much as the weak. The closest equivalent to Alcibiades, the no less mercurial Donald Trump, is not threatening mass killing and enslavement of Danes, Canadians, and Ukrainians but he is acting like the Athenians by issuing ultimatums to perplexed allies who grow more alienated with each demand. As the twenty-first century develops, with the USA increasingly having to deal with nascent superpowers that threaten to eclipse it, and with whom it may very well come into cold or hot conflict, the History of Peloponnesian Warremains – as Thucydides intended – a “lesson for all time.” Given the presence of a highly educated team of seasoned diplomats and academics in the administration, one would hope that at least one of Trump and Vance’s advisors could and would draw the parallels between the Athenian scorning of the states with which it interacted and the current American treatment of its allies.

As the present incumbent of the Oval Office and his potential successor assess the early days of this administration in the light of a comparison with Athens, they might reassess their treatment of their allies and reflect on the risk that they or future American leaders might have to learn the lesson that the strong too can suffer the consequences of their actions. Power, like any resource, can be a curse if it is not used with judgment. The prudent treatment of existing allies like Canada, Denmark, and Ukraine is more valuable to a statesman and the country he represents than publicity stunts at the expense of ‘Governor” Trudeau or the instant gratification provided by press conferences that certainly provide ‘great television’ but whose contribution to the national interest is of dubious value.