From the Bookshelf of War Nerd Reading List…

To some extent the tragedy of the Athenian expedition is a morality play written in blood. An empire abandons the values that made it great, and indeed actively turns against those who still hold those values. Yet while the exploitation of the weak and defenceless appears to go unpunished, the blind pride and ambition of the empire eventually over-reaches itself and (with a few deft nudges from fate) collapses into ruin. This is a story that has enjoyed a few re-runs since the fifth century B

To some extent the tragedy of the Athenian expedition is a morality play written in blood. An empire abandons the values that made it great, and indeed actively turns against those who still hold those values. Yet while the exploitation of the weak and defenceless appears to go unpunished, the blind pride and ambition of the empire eventually over-reaches itself and (with a few deft nudges from fate) collapses into ruin. This is a story that has enjoyed a few re-runs since the fifth century BC, and it is not hard to pick up the plot today.

Among the self-styled elites of today there has been hubris on a massive scale, perhaps best exemplified by the words ‘too big to fail’. As with the Athenians in Sicily, we see the naked self-interest of a group being given a sophisticated spin to convince the majority that being exploited is actually for the best. Politicians, financiers and large corporations appear to share a separate reality in which ordinary people matter only to the degree they can be gulled or coerced into making good for follies that make the Athenian expedition seem wise by comparison.

Many in today’s world have been carelessly damaged by the cynical use of power to satiate greed. Like the Athenians, the perpetrators have paid little attention to Nemesis. The question, perhaps, is whether Nemesis is paying attention to them.