Roots of Realism

Benjamin Frankel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135210212
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Political realism sees politics as a permanent struggle for power and security. The essays in this volume examine the tradition of realist political analysis of international relations from the Sophists and Thucydides to the modern era.

II. Classical Realism

Thucydides' Critique of Realpolitik

PAUL A. RAHE

Paul A. Rahe is the Jay P. Walker Professor of History and chairman of the Department of History at the University of Tulsa.

This essay was first drafted for presentation at a conference on "Civilians in the Path of War" held at the Mershon Center of Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio on 5-6 November 1993. In revised form, it was delivered as a public lecture at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. on 25 January 1994. I am indebted to the organizers of and the participants in the original conference and to Bernard M. W. Knox, Donald Kagan, James W. Muller, David Harris Sacks, Philip Selznick, and my anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions. While working on this essay, I was a fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities and of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and I profited from support by the Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa.

Bernard Knox
Octogesimo anno

AMONG POLITICAL scientists, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides has long had a reputation as the first great proponent of "realism" in foreign policy. He is customarily read as such in courses in international relations,¹ and scholars in that field frequently use him as a touchstone in determining whether a given theory of world politics can accurately be categorized as "realist" or not.² Classicists and historians tend to see him in much the same way.

Students who enroll to study ancient Greek history learn from perusing the standard textbook that Thucydides' discussion of the Peloponnesian War is "severe in its detachment, written from a purely intellectual point of view, unencumbered with platitudes and moral judgments, cold and critical.”³ The author of one of the two most recent attempts to account for the coming of the Peloponnesian War speaks for the overwhelming majority of scholars when he describes Thucydides as "a complete and ruthless realist.”⁴ Even when Thucydides is recounting what may be the most egregious example of the mistreatment of a captive population to have taken place in the course of the war, his "interest seems to be concentrated on the analysis of power and the logical implications of the natural law that the strong rule the weak." Such, at least, is the judgment of the preeminent modern student of Athenian imperialism.⁵ It is no wonder, then, that the author of the standard work on ancient Greek historiography should write that "the whole innuendo of the Thucydidean treatment of history agrees with the fundamental postulate of Machiavelli, the supremacy of reason of state," and then add that, if Thucydides had written "an analytical treatise on politics" rather than "a history," it is highly "probable that he would occupy a different place from that which he holds actually in the world's esteem; he would have forestalled the fame of Machiavelli."⁶

There is, of course, a powerful—-many would say, a compelling—case to be made for such a characterization. Thucydides was anything but naive; and at the outset of his narrative, he takes care to indicate what it is that distinguishes his history from poetry written by the likes of Homer.⁷ In "the archaeology," the first twenty-three chapters of the first book of his history,⁸ he lays out an account of the emergence of rest from motion, of peace from war, of civilization from chaos, and of Hellenism from barbarism that is as entirely devoid of sentimentality as anything to be found in The Prince.⁹ Moreover, in a famous passage near the end of this account, he remarks on the absence in his writing of "the mythic" or "fabulous," observing that, while this may render his history "less delightful" to some, it would satisfy his own purpose if his work were "judged useful by those who want to observe clearly the events which happened in the past and which in accord with the character of the human predicament will again come to pass hereafter in quite similar ways." His work was not a tragedy, a comedy, or a satyr play designed for the dramatic competition at a religious festival; it "was composed as a possession for all times rather than as a contest piece meant to be heard straightaway" (1.22.4).¹⁰ That, nearly two and a half millennia after the appearance of the Greek historian's book, a political scientist should openly wonder "whether or not twentieth-century students of international relations know anything that Thucydides and his fifth-century compatriots did not know about the behavior of states" would not have surprised the Athenian.¹¹ He would have been overjoyed at the prospect that a modern American statesman, such as George C. Marshall, should look to him for an understanding of the state of affairs then current and express to a university audience grave doubts as to "whether a man can think with full wisdom and with deep convictions regarding certain of the basic international issues today who has not at least reviewed in his mind the period of the Peloponnesian War and the Fall of Athens."¹² It is, indeed, easy to see why, during the cold war, one might be inclined to discern in Thucydides an historian unsurpassed as an analyst of the conduct of politics, diplomacy, and war in a bipolar world.¹³

There is, however, another side to Thucydides—one, until recendy, less often remarked, especially among students of international affairs.¹⁴ I propose to examine this neglected dimension here, for it merits close attention on the part of those seeking to understand the drift of world politics. Thucydides may have known something about the behavior of states that Machiavellian realists are inclined to overlook.

The Fragility of Civilized Life

IF THUCYDIDES' purpose were merely the analysis of power politics, he would have excluded from his narrative events which contribute nothing to that end, and there would have been no place in his account for the elaborate argument (4.97—101) concerning the dictates of piety engaged in by the Athenians and the Boeotians in the wake of the battle of Delium in 424 B.C.¹⁵ Of course, there is no sign in this passage or anywhere else that Thucydides himself was god-fearing or that his history simply recapitulates the basic, religious themes of Greek tragedy.¹⁶ No one who has recently read Herodotus can fail to contrast the two historians in this respect.¹⁷ When the former speaks of the absence in his narrative of "the mythic" or "fabulous," he surely has in mind, among other things, his remarkable reticence regarding an intervention in human affairs by the immortal gods. Yet the exchange at Delium cannot simply be ignored either. At the very least, it indicates Thucydides' interest in debunking the presumption that piety can act as a restraint on human conduct in time of war.¹⁸ Also, there is more, for the historian persists, throughout his narrative, in reporting appeals for divine intervention, religious oracles, festivals, and sacrifices, and the attempts of various speakers to justify their behavior with an eye to divine law. He is evidently interested in casting light on the role played by religious awe in human affairs more generally, and he invites his readers to ponder why human beings caught up in circumstances in which religious restraints are largely ineffectual nonetheless persist in making religious appeals.¹⁹

A similar argument can be made concerning the inclusion within Thucydides' history of a brief but poignant discussion of the disaster at Mycalessus. As Thucydides explains, in 413 B.C., some Thracian mercenaries, sought by Demosthenes, had reached Athens too late to accompany that general on the relief expedition to Sicily. The Athenians at the time were under financial pressure and appointed a commander to conduct the Thracians back home. En route, they were to do whatever damage they could do to those of Athens' enemies living near the coast. It was this which occasioned their landing in Boeotia near the town of Mycalessus, whose inhabitants they caught completely off guard:

The Thracians burst into Mycalessus, sacked the houses and temples, and butchered the inhabitants, sparing neither the young nor the old, but methodically killing everyone they met, women and children alike, and even the farm animals and every living thing they saw. For the Thracian tribe, like the most bloodthirsty of the barbarian kind, is at its most murderous when most caught up in audacity (tharsêsé). So now there was confusion on all sides and death in every shape and form. Among other things, they broke into a boys' school, the largest in the place, into which the children had just entered, and killed every one of them. Thus disaster fell upon the entire city, a disaster more complete than any, more sudden and more horrible.

Thucydides does go on to discuss the Theban counterassault on the retreating Thracians; and in characteristic fashion, he takes care to remark on the effectiveness of the tactics used by these light-armed troops against the Theban cavalry, for we are clearly meant to recognize that they would have been useful against the horsemen of Syracuse. The historian, however, returns at the end of his account to the losses at Mycalessus: "It was a small city, but in the disaster just described its people suffered calamities as pitiable as any which took place during the war" (7.29—30). It is only after reading an account such as this that one can appreciate the significance of Thucydides' concluding his proof for the claim that the Peloponnesian War was the greatest movement or commotion (kínêsis) in the history of the Greeks by noting that it produced "sufferings without precedent."²⁰ There is no place for pity and none for an appreciation of piety in a work "severe in its detachment, written from a purely intellectual point of view, unencumbered with platitudes and moral judgments, cold and critical," that has been composed by "a complete and ruthless realist" indistinguishable from Niccolò Machiavelli.²¹

How, then, can we best describe Thucydides? That he begins with realism and sets out to discover its implications there can be no doubt. In his narrative, however, he makes clear the limitations of realism as a mode of analysis, and he pinpoints the grave dangers inherent in making it the foundation of public deliberation. At the deepest level, as I will try to demonstrate below, Thucydides' history is a critique of Machiavellian realism—a critique carried out from within. Its chief theme is neither the acquisition and retention of power nor the causes of anarchy in the international realm: Thucydides is much more interested in exploring the conditions essential for, the circumstances conducive to, and the fragile character of what we would now call civilized life. His account of realism is subordinate to this theme—as is his graphic depiction of the consequences in store for those who embrace and publicly endorse the theory and practice of Realpolitik.

Thucydidean Rhetoric

IF THUCYDIDES' critical stance with regard to realism is often missed, it is because the historian makes a practice of not direcdy revealing his hand.²² In antiquity it was recognized that moral and political persuasion is akin to seduction. Accordingly, it was one of the principles of ancient rhetoric that one must by indirection make one's listener a participant in the process of achieving conviction. As Theophrastus put it,

It is not necessary to speak at length and with precision on everything, hut some things should be left also for the listener—to be understood and sorted out by himself—so that, in coming to understand that which has been left by you for him, he will become not just your listener but also your witness, and a witness quite well disposed as well. For he will think himself a man of understanding because you have afforded him an occasion for showing his capacity for understanding. By the same token, whoever tells his listener everything accuses him of being mindless.²³

It has long been recognized that the classical historians were schooled in rhetoric and practiced this art.²⁴ Thucydides was no exception.

Thomas Hobbes judged it "the principal and proper work of history...to instruct and enable men, by the knowledge of actions past, to bear themselves prudendy in the present and providendy towards the future." In the preface to his translation of the Greek historian, he singled him out as "the most politi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• I. RECONSTRUCTING REALISM
• II. CLASSICAL REALISM
• III. MODERN REALISM
• Bibliography
• Index