Thucydides and Alcibiades

Thucydides, which by the way, is an awesome name for a historian, talked about how the athenian democracy came to an end. And just as birth of Athenian empire was relevant to how U.S. is now, the end of the Athenian empire should also be given as much attention by contemporary americans if not more. To put things in simple way, it ended due to politics. Alcibiades, nephew of Pericles, was probably seen as destined for great things just like his uncle. But while his uncle played a role in starting up Peloponnesian wars and the war ended by signing a peace treaty, Alcibiades, a favorite student of Socrates, led his city to another war that would mark doom for the nation. This war was supposed to be a preemptive war, attack sparta and her allies before they have a chance to attack athens, though the information regarding Sparta's intent was sparse. Because the committee had doubts about Alcibiades' intent, they distributed the power to control military among three individuals. But the idea of check and balances can hinder operations if it is not applied correctly. Rather than having a simple chain of command they created a horizontal chain of command. The power was distributed between Alcibiades, Nicias, who was against the war, and Lamachus, the war tested general.

What happened next was amusing and depressing at the same time. While on homeland there were religion and sex scandals, on the war front, Sicily, which was supposed to be in a civil war, was neutral when it came to Athens Spartan conflict and would not let them board. A year passed and they kept sailing around Sicily still contemplating what to do and on the other hand Sparta caught wind of Athens intentions. Alcibiades when called back to homeland to face his charges fled battlefield and joined with none other than Sparta, telling them this would be best time to strike athens. Lamachus dies in a one of the battles and Nicias, who was against the war in the first place, is now commanding all the military. Sparta sends troops in sicily and instead of withdrawing, Athens decide to keep continuing the war. This is the trademark of democratic nation. When they are in a war, they are in it for the long haul. The end result was complete decimation of Athenian military. So the lesson from this portion of history is that beware of whenever a democratic nation enters a war. Resources from the nation are going to be diverted to military for a long long time. And unless there is some charismatic statesman in charge of the nation, the fickle public opinion is ultimately going to hurt the nation economically, culturally, and politically.