He’s Back

"I think he can be successful in this role," @kroenig says of John Bolton, President Trump's choice to be national security adviser. pic.twitter.com/pq6AdjLTMf

— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) March 23, 2018

Ever since the days of Thucydides, states have used force to get what they want, and have expected weaker states to comply with their wishes. Ever since the days of Thucydides, they have claimed that this is all perfectly justifiable as the way of the world. Ever since the days of Thucydides, men have made confident claims that war is easy, straightforward, risk-free, simply an opportunity to demonstrate one’s greatness and reorder the world in a more congenial manner. Ever since the days of Thucydides, international relations academics and military strategists have spouted cliches like “Ever since the days of Thucydides…” as a cheap source of borrowed authority and gravitas. I just don’t get the part where this is supposed to be reassuring, even if it is delivered by a chiselled jaw and Action Man stare.

He’s back. John Bolton, that is. Thucydides never seems to have gone away – but it could be argued that one version of Thucydides is starting to win out over others. As I suggested last year, talk of Thucydides taking over the White House needed to be qualified by the fact that different people clearly had different conceptions of what Thucydides is all about, from the clear-eyed rational strategist of the military men to the China guru of the Allison fans to Bannon’s burn it all down Sparta groupie. Bolton’s retu4n brings to mind the Neocon Thucydides of Kagan and the rest: Athens in the Melian Dialogue as a template for superpower dominance, and Sicily would have been a cakewalk if not for those pesky liberals…