{"id":3544,"date":"2010-09-22T02:05:26","date_gmt":"2010-09-22T02:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3544"},"modified":"2010-09-22T02:05:26","modified_gmt":"2010-09-22T02:05:26","slug":"honor-fear-and-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3544","title":{"rendered":"Honor, Fear and Interest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rainbowresource.com\/products\/017682.jpg\" height=\"761\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0684827905?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=zenpundit-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0684827905\"><strong>The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War<\/strong><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" width=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=zenpundit-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0684827905\" height=\"1\" style=\"margin: 0px; border: medium none\" \/>\u00a0by <strong>Thucydides<\/strong>, <strong>Robert B. Strassler<\/strong> (ed.)<\/p>\n<p>As <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/wingsoveriraq.blogspot.com\/2010\/09\/on-thucydides.html\">noted earlier today<\/a> by<strong> Crispin<\/strong> at <strong>Wings over Iraq<\/strong>, <strong>Dan Drezner<\/strong> has written one of his better posts:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;T<a href=\"http:\/\/drezner.foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2010\/09\/21\/the_top_three_reasons_you_should_read_thucydides\">he Top Three Reasons You Should Read Thucydides<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>3) You will recognize some recurrent patterns in history. Thucydides will help one develop a better appreciation for <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" align=\"right\" width=\"175\" src=\"http:\/\/images.publicradio.org\/content\/2007\/10\/18\/20071018_dan_drezner_18.jpg\" height=\"175\" \/>life in 5th century BC, but it will <em>really<\/em> help one develop an appreciation for the aspects of human nature that are unchanged through time.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>For exhibit A, consider <\/strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/ipeatunc.blogspot.com\/2010\/09\/on-laffaire-peretz-and-nativism.html\"><strong>this\u00a0recent Kindred Winecoff\u00a0post<\/strong><\/a><strong> with respect to American soldiers, war crimes, and nativism. The relevant section&#8230;<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Agreed. Human nature has not changed much since 400 BC nor has politics become more\u00a0nuanced than in the days of the <em><strong>polis<\/strong><\/em>. I am also dubious that America, or most nations, for that matter, have produced leaders recently who were of the caliber of <strong>Pericles <\/strong>or <strong>Lysander<\/strong>. On the other hand, <strong>Nicias<\/strong>, <strong>Alcibiades<\/strong>, <strong>Hyperbolus<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Critias<\/strong> and various bumbling Spartan\u00a0<strong>Navarchs<\/strong>, the world appears to enjoy in spades.<\/p>\n<p>It is often said that history is philosophy from examples, but in <strong>Thucydides<\/strong>, history is also strategy from examples. I agree with Professor Drezner that Thucydides belongs on the shortlist of books military officers should read; I&#8217;d feel a lot better when the next\u00a0international crisis erupted, \u00a0if our politicians read him too. If\u00a0our elected officials\u00a0could at least internalize &#8220;honor, fear and interest&#8221;, it would make our foreign policy debates markedly less stupid and public expectations of policy more realistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War\u00a0by Thucydides, Robert B. Strassler (ed.) As noted earlier today by Crispin at Wings over Iraq, Dan Drezner has written one of his better posts: &#8220;The Top Three Reasons You Should Read Thucydides&#8221; 3) You will recognize some recurrent patterns in history. Thucydides will help [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,46,414,350,321,133,366,586,102,147,34,87,51,78,336,39,187,436,127,530,13,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-analytic","category-ancient-history","category-army","category-blogosphere","category-book","category-classics","category-dime","category-diplomacy","category-diplomatic-history","category-education","category-foreign-policy","category-history","category-ideas","category-intellectuals","category-military","category-politics","category-psychology","category-strategy","category-strategy-and-war","category-theory","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}