Bush, Putin, and Thucydides

The news this week has been all about Bush telling Putin that he's backsliding on democracy, and he'd better shape up. What a singular privilege, to be lectured about democracy from a man like Bush. What must Putin be thinking as he endures this kind of thing? It's as if Hitler were to lecture FDR and Churchill about anti-semitism in the United States and Britain. Putin has a war criminal sitting in front of him, sanctimoniously telling him that his leadership of Russia is undemocratic.

What's Bush going to tell Putin next? That he shouldn't make war in Chechnya? That he shouldn't use propaganda to destroy people's reputations? That he shouldn't be dishonest in his dealings with the people of Russia? Putin should just walk out on this man, tell this glad-hander that the rest of the world has had enough of him.

Every day, we show the whole world how weak we really are. We show that we can't protect our soldiers from roadside bombs. We show that we send our brave men into battle with no realistic or legitimate purpose. We show that we can't manage to secure the highway from the Baghdad airport to the city. We can't even secure the main thoroughfare in the city itself. But we can destroy a city, Fallujah, with heavy armor and air power, and claim that we have reduced the enemy's ability to fight. Who believes that?

Our enemies can also observe what we have to do to deploy 150,000 soldiers to Iraq. We have to reduce our forces in Korea. We have to place extraordinary demands on our reserves and our national guard. We have to rotate divisions in and out to give our men and women some time away from the horrible conditions there. It's clear that we can't deploy 150,000 soldiers elsewhere while we are involved with state-building in Iraq.

Meantime, our enemies grow stronger by the day. Someday soon, our enemies and our rivals will say, "Your time is up. We'll struggle against you. And we'll fight you if we have to." And they'll treat us the way we have treated them. Others don't respect us anymore. Respect is offered to a leader, and we don't lead. Others fear us. As Thucydides showed us in his parable of self-destruction, the History of the Pelopponesian War: when states fear a great power, as the Greek city-states feared Athens, the smaller states will find a way to unite against the great power to destroy it. As it turned out, Athens destroyed itself by going abroad to fight an unnecessary war in Sicily. After that campaign, Athens never regained its strength.

Athens lost its position of leadership when it began to act like a bully and a predator. Strength flowed away from it after that, just as strength flows away from a leader who shows himself to be weak. Yes, it takes some time to muster the courage that a challenge requires. It takes some time to muster counter-vailing strength. But it doesn't take that much time, and the challenge is coming soon. When it comes, we will look around for people to help us, and no one will be there.