A measure of the success of an idea, or at least its temporary trendiness, is when it crops up in completely irrelevant and inappropriate places. It can only be a matter of time before ‘Thucydides’s Trap’ starts getting referenced in sports reporting (Bayern versus Red Bull Leipzig?) or pop music (Taylor Swift versus someone we haven’t heard of yet?), but at the moment it does appear compulsory to mention it in any discussion whatsoever of inter-state relations in Asia. This morning’s example comes from a piece by John Blaxland of ANU in East Asia Forum asking ‘Do the lessons of Thucydides apply to Singapore?’
Tl;dr: nope. The real question: why did anyone imagine that they would? The Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, Kishore Mahbubani, started this when he reflected last month on possible lessons for Singapore of the Qatar crisis, one of which was the need for small states to recognise their position in the world and keep their heads down:
This action was part of a larger pattern of behaviour where Qatar believed that its mounds of money and its close relations with the US would protect it from consequences. In so doing, Qatar ignored an eternal rule of geopolitics: small states must behave like small states. Why? The answer was given by the famous historian, Thucydides, when writing about the war between Athens and Sparta: “Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” When I spent a year in Harvard in 1991/1992, Professor Joseph Nye highlighted this rule constantly in his lessons of history.
Boilerplate Realism, taking the questionable assertion of the Athenians in the Melian Dialogue as an objective feature of the world, and hence a reason (or excuse) for ducking any awkward issues of justice or ethics.
It’s not actually obvious from Blaxland’s summary of Mahbubani’s article that it mentions Thucydides; rather, his name gets evoked initially on the authority of Graham Allison’s reading of the likelihood of a US-China confrontation, before Blaxland segues back to Melos.
Great power dynamics can certainly generate tensions but the jury is out on whether such a war is inevitable in Asia. Smaller states sometimes play disproportionate roles, and other times not. During that war, for instance, Athens subjugated the city-state of Melos, which had sought to stay neutral in the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides observed that in subjugating Melos, Athens demonstrated a truism: ‘the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’. There is a sense that Mahbubani seems to have tapped into a fear that Singapore may have some Melian-like tendencies and that if not careful, the city state could become a casualty in a great power clash in and around Southeast Asia reminiscent of Thucydides’ war.
Blaxland expands on Mahbubani’s reference to Melos (while distorting the context of the quotation a little further), and thus draws out the implication of the comparison: that there are such things as ‘Melian-like tendencies’, and that the Melians had somehow failed to acknowledge their own weakness and keep their heads down in an appropriate manner. Blaxland’s response is that Singapore is not so small or insignificant, and so need not adopt such a policy; ” Singapore has understood that very well and worked assiduously to cultivate a range of constructive relations to shield the city-state from the kinds of great power challenges the Melians experienced.” So, “while Thucydides’ work remains eminently readable, due to geography, alliances, regional architecture and other ties, its application to Singapore is of limited utility.”
Fair enough, though this ignores Thucydides’ crucial point, that the crushing of Melos was completely independent of any actions by the Melians themselves; this is what power-crazed imperialist powers do to minor bystanders. Blaxland could in fact have argued that his reading is more Thucydidean than Mahbubani’s; one of the implied counterfactuals in the Melian Dialogue is that the Athenians might have been more circumspect if the Melians had been less isolated, more closely allied with other powers etc., whereas their wish to remain neutral and friends with everyone (Mahbubani’s policy proposal for Singapore) was doomed.
But what is most striking is that Thucydides gets evoked at all; both writers take it as read that his account might be relevant. His name serves as a synecdoche for basic Realist theory (there is only power, and those who don’t have any) and for the possibility of great power conflict; it feels as if a discussion of inter-state politics in Asia that didn’t mention Thucydides would be judged as inadequate…
Update 19/8: and now we get the Thucydides Trap in South America, exploring the relationship between Argentina and Brazil: http://theglobalamericans.org/2017/08/avoiding-thucydides-trap-south-american-example/. Bonus for evoking the magic of dance – yes, let’s talk about the Thucydides Tango instead!
Haven’t had a chance to read the post properly yet, but thought wd mention that Allison was interviewed yesterday on the PBS NewsHr. Heard it on radio, then just now watching the opening minute of the video, I notice that Allison wears a U.S. flag lapel pin. Perhaps his notion is that the flag shdn’t be left to be monopolized by the Repubs, Tea Party, etc. (I don’t know. Speculating.)
The interviewer, Margaret Warner, is a very good reporter but doesn’t challenge him at all on his use of Thucydides; not that kind of interview. The word “Thucydidean” completely defeated the instant transcribers (human or mechanical) who rendered “perfectly Thucydidean” as “perfectly lucidity” which of course is just gobbledygook.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/u-s-china-heading-toward-war-ancient-greek-history-can-teach-u/
Many thanks, and sorry for delayed reply. There are a *lot* of Allison interviews and discussions out there now – his cosy chat with Henry Kissinger is a classic…