Opinion | Trump Has Done More Than Misjudge Iran

“We live in a world,” Miller told Tapper, “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” The painful fallout of the Iran war provides an eloquent rebuttal. But the Trump administration has done more than misjudge American force and the wherewithal of its adversary. It has fundamentally misunderstood what power is, conflating it with the capacity to inflict violence when the two are, in truth, opposed.

Miller’s chest-thumping recalls one of the most ancient and influential texts about war, Thucydides’ “History of the Peloponnesian War.” Across eight detailed books, it tells the story of an epic fight between two rival hegemons in the Mediterranean, Athens and Sparta. “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” the powerful Athenians tell the citizens of Melos, a neutral Greek island, ordering them to submit or be slaughtered.

This declaration is often cited as an ur-realist iron law of might equaling right. But there’s an irony that often escapes those who cite the line, perhaps because they didn’t read the whole text. If they had, they’d discover that the Melians were not powerless victims but cleareyed prophets. “And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it?” the Melians asked their attackers.

Unmoved, the Athenians laid siege to the city, slaughtering all its men and enslaving its women and children. But the triumph at Melos was a false victory. Drunk on the violence they mistook for power, the Athenians blundered on to a far riskier gambit, an invasion of Sicily. The Athenians, initially divided on the war, were eventually persuaded by leaders who believed that the Sicilians were weak and corrupt. They were sitting ducks, unable to defend themselves against so fearsome a foe. It would be an easy victory bringing Athens greater glory.

But strength was not enough. The timbers of Athenian ships, enforcing a long blockade, rotted; supply lines dried up. The Athenians, increasingly short of money, had to impose new taxes to fund the war. Finally, in a fierce battle at Syracuse, they were routed. It wasn’t the end of Athens’ hegemony, but it was the beginning of the end. Eventually, Sparta took its place as the Mediterranean’s pre-eminent power.