Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 100

Most foreign policy students are introduced to the discipline through
this story of the conflict between the Athenians, rulers of a vast empire,
and the underdog Melians, the inhabitants of the island of Melos. Before
laying them to waste, the Athenians attempted to reason with the Melians
and urged them to capitulate. Subjugation beats utter destruction, argued
the Athenians. But the Melians rejected the offer, resigning themselves to
a desperate, and ultimately futile, last stand. As overwhelming victors, the
Athenians massacred all the Melian men and took the women and children
as slaves.
For the eager undergraduates, the dominant interpretation of this saga from
the Peloponnesian War is “might equals right.” � Cultivated though they
might have been, the Athenians lived in a hard power world.
But does this lesson provide an appropriate foundation for twenty-first
century students and practitioners of foreign affairs? Does it translate
well in today’s globally connected world? (Arguably, it didn’t even work
out so well for the Athenians, who soon faced brutality not unlike their
own toward the Melians, and defeat, at the hands of the Siracusans.) Is
Thucydides’s conclusion, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer
what they must,” an appropriate mantra for the twenty-first century? With
the proliferation of nonstate actors, citizen journalism, social media, and
��/� communications, committing an atrocity to maintain dominance might
not be a winning strategy for a leading global power. There has not been a
traditionally waged war with a clear winner and loser since ����. The United
States and their allies in Europe, Japan, and Australia project their power
through their values, ideals, laws, discoveries, and other identity-building
narratives. Soft power the power of influence and persuasion, which was
vital to defeating Soviet authoritarianism, has arguably made the “might
equals right” interpretation of The Melian Dialogue an anachronistic false
path.
Ancient Greece, the source of realpolitik, also offers an antidote: theatre;
more specifically, the empathy that theatre engenders through compelling
narratives experienced in a live communal setting. Reacting to the brutality
�
Bosworth (����) argues in favor of a humanitarian interpretation of the Athenians’ offer
to the Melians.
99