Do Hobbes and Thucydides Provide Timeless Truths - Coursework Example

 “Do Hobbes and Thucydides provide ‘timeless truths’? International security is a subject that has hounded the world especially after the 9/11 tragedy. In addition, the emergence of globalisation which has the effect of blurring state boundaries and the advances made in travel has complicated the issue. The protection of a state from hostile forces, not so much coming from another state but from groups which have antithetical sentiments, have preoccupied many advanced countries forcing them to augment intelligence and adopt police state-like measures. International security is not however, a preoccupation only of the present. Thucydides, a 5th century Athenian historian, wrote about the Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C.E. between Athens and Sparta. 1 Subsequently, Thomas Hobbes, an Oxford University graduate and an English philosopher, wrote Leviathan in 1651, a social and political commentary on human nature and the necessity of the creation of one common power that will impose its will on all individuals to contain the anarchy inherent in conflicting interests.2 Hobbes’ and Thucydides’ works, despite having been written in eras so different and unique from the present, reflect timeless truths about international security. The term ‘security’ simply means the absence of threats. According to the book Theory of Security, it has the following core elements: “the existence of a referent object (someone or something is being threatened); impending or actual danger, and; a desire to escape harmful activities.” 3 On the international scale, security means the absence of this threat from the perspective of state relative to other states. The writings of Thucydides and especially Hobbes show that even in their eras, the two understood the concept of international security. Notwithstanding the differences, political and otherwise, between the present and the 5th and 17th centuries, Thucydides’ and Hobbes’ works mirror timeless truths in international security. This truth particularly lies in the underpinning dilemmas of choice of the use of force to ensure security. For example, the writings of Thucydides offered insights on the protracted war between Athens and Sparta and their allies. Hobbes, who wrote Leviathan during the era of the France and Austria contest for European superiority, just as well provided insights as its origin. The basic principles enunciated in the works of these historical figures found applicability in the international conflicts which engendered the World War I and World War II as well as the Cold War between the United States and the former Union Soviet Socialist Republic, among others. 4 Another relevant aspect of Hobbes and Thucydides is their shared assumptions that conflicts engendered by human propensity for violence can be resolved only by a contrary force. Many contemporary philosophers and political scientists oppose this position but Hobbes and Thucydides believed that violence and force embedded in human society can only be met with an equal or even greater force, and to resolve them with peaceful means would only result in the eruption of violence. 5 The writings of both, especially Hobbes, have traces of the Machiavellian strongman-rule in them. Machiavelli, of course, was born and had lived in between the eras of these writers and therefore the bigger possibility is that Machiavelli had referred to the writings of Thucydides and Hobbes had extensively read Machiavelli. It is a known fact that Hobbes had translated once the Peloponnesian War.6 All three are known as classic realists, 7 so called because of their tendency to see things from a pragmatic and worldly perspective. Thomas Hobbes. As stated previously, Hobbes’ Leviathan is a political and social philosophy of the cogent reasons for the existence of a commonwealth, the leviathan, to rule society and how it must give up some of its own freedom to accommodate the former’s existence and ensure social and political order. The ultimate goal of the commonwealth’s existence is the protection of the society in general. 8 Chapter 13 of the book, considered as Hobbes’ philosophy of international relations, posited the doctrine of the origin of conflict – conflict that entails human differences which on a larger scale is war. What really underpins, said Hobbes, any conflict is that all men are created equal, - an ironic proposition considering that many believe that it is inequality which breeds them. Thus, a person weaker than another can still defeat him through treachery or in alliance with others. A state of equality, according to Hobbes, makes for instability because men, by their very nature, will force to alter this equation to favor their position in the hope of overtaking the rest. Hobbes believed that men are naturally competitive, driving men to war with each other and success will not be satisfactory as long as there are others who can be potential threats. The desire for fame and glory are still another motivation for him. On a larger scale, these basic human instincts are translatable to state conflicts and are the underlying reasons for war. According to Hobbes there are three primary reasons for conflict and these are: competition; fear, and; glory. Thus, a country will attack a neighbor which have more resources and acquire these resources for itself. Its success however, will not stop it from foraging again when it sees that another country has the ability or capacity to attack and conquer it one day. Countries are also known for attacking another to show off its strength and superiority. This hunger for power was illustrated in history by men like Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great and in the modern times, by Adolf Hitler. 9 The propensity of humans for violence could lead to anarchy, a time when humans accomplish nothing leading to social and economic stagnancy. Thus: “In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation or use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary; poor, nasty, brutish and short.”10 The book Amoral Politics, finds Hobbes law of human nature “particularly striking” in its Machiavellianism.11 In his The Prince, Machiavelli wrote of men: “For this may be said of men generally: they are ungrateful, fickle, feigners, and dissemblers, avoiders of danger, eager for pain. While you benefit them they are all devoted to you: they would shed their blood for you; they offer their possessions, their lives, and their sons, as I said before, when the need to do so is far off.”12 Evidently, both philosophers had no high regard for the nature of man. Hobbes then clearly saw and identified the enemy – it is the ordinary person in each one of us with conflicting interests, needs and social preferences. This is the law of nature and this is where the security issue – domestic or international - is rooted in. There is a constant underlying threat of violence existing in all human activities caused by this conflicting desires and the inability of humans to find a peaceful resolution. For Hobbes, it is a given that men would always resort to force and threats at every opportunity to prevail over others and within this context everyone loses because of the ensuing anarchy and chaos. The only solution to this, according to Hobbes, is the ascendancy of an awesome force that will regulate the conduct of men – the Leviathan - a force that can guaranty “the social condition needed for physical survival, economic development and the perfection and nurturing of civilization.”13 To prevent human nature from prevailing, Hobbes prescribed the creation of an absolute leviathan, not unlike Machiavelli’s strong man, a despot, whose only limitation is to refrain from “laying his hands on the property of his citizens and subjects, and on their womenfolk.”14 This law of nature, e.g. the consistent tendency of men to be violent, is pivotal in the appreciation of Hobbes’ perspectives on international security because he equated it to the law of nations. Thus, in his writing the Elements of Law, he admitted that indeed the law of nature is the same as the law of nations. Moreover, “For that which is the law of nature between man and man, before the constitution of the commonwealth, is the law of nations between sovereign and sovereign.” 15 The implication of this equation is that the relationships of nations are very much like that of men – one that is essentially characterized by violence. Hobbes’ concept of social contract is one where the people give up their individual sovereign rights to a monarch in exchange for the latter’s protection. In Leviathan, Hobbes stated that a sovereign which cannot form a social contract with another sovereign has the prerogative to protect the body politic in the same way that an individual would protect himself from another. 16 The idea of a social contract between and among sovereigns was touched in Chapter 21 of the Leviathan, a notion of the 17th century international relations, which according to Hobbes, is steadier than that between individuals. Hobbes also broached the subject of alliances between nations in times of war, as a matter of the “conscience of the sovereign princes and sovereign assemblies.” The relations of kings can be implicitly governed by ‘natural punishments’ an historical example of which was the Peloponnesian War which set off by Athens’ blockade of trade from Megara.17 Hobbes illustrated his keen understanding of the fine line that separates international harmony and conflict, a line that can be easily breached when one state exercises intolerance towards another and sets off a conflict that can last for years. However, Hobbes discounted the possibility of a constant harmonious relationship between and among states: “You are not to expect such a peace between nations; because there is no common power in this world to punish their injustice. Mutual fear may keep them quiet for a time; but upon every visible advantage they will invade one another; and the most visible advantage is then, when the one nation is obedient to their king, and the other not. But peace at home may be expected durable, when the common people shall be made to see the benefit they shall receive by their obedience and adhesion to their own sovereign, and the harm they must suffer by taking part with them, who by promises of reformation, or change of government deceive them.”18 The implication of the above statement is that the world will be more stable if things in the domestic front are stable and this stability in the world is greater if more countries are stable internally. Thus, kings and sovereigns must be granted the right to impose taxes on their subjects and guarantee an army which is well armed and stocked. In this way, other nations will think twice before invading a country that has means to defeat it. This is therefore a sine qua non to world peace. In other words, Hobbes advocated absolute sovereignty as the means to world peace 19 and this is his key to the attainment of international security – domestic security. The essence of the Hobbes philosophy is kept alive by modern day theorists, called realists, who subscribed to Hobbes’ idea of a state of nature as the underlying principle not only in the domestic fronts but also in international affairs. Realist scholars sought in Hobbes’ political and social philosophy the basis for understanding the significance of order and anarchy in international politics. John J. Mearsheimer, for example, who is an American international relations theorist, finds parallelism between Hobbes’ state of nature and the international environment of states. Thus, there is a constant underlying conflict between and among nations that can only be arrested by a leviathan-like force. Mearsheimer opined that the Cold War constituted such a force and its collapse will be cause for eventual lament. 20 For while the Cold War was a war, it was a force that provided stability between nations as there was a conscious effort to keep the balance of world power at an equal and stable state for fear that a perceptible lateral shift will deteriorate into a nuclear contest. Hans Morgenthau, a German international theorist, on the other hand, states that “the essence of international politics is identical with its domestic counterpart. Both domestic and international politics is a struggle for power.” 21 To the realists however, Hobbes’ idea of an international leviathan is almost impossible. Although they completely adhere to Hobbes theory that the inherent conflicting nature of humans can only be met by an equal force exercised by a great body “capable of holding unmatched power and centralizing fear,” the creation thereof is unlikely because states are sovereigns in their own right. As a consequence, there is a perpetual state of ‘anarchy’ among nations. The only solution, according to the realists, is for the states to depend on their own capacity and power to survive. 22 Thus, we find that the countries least subjected to constant harassment from external forces are those the most stable – militarily, economically and politically. However, the world’s experience on September 11, 2001 seemed to suggest that no one nation is totally immune from what Hobbes would call “law of nature.” Thucydides. Thucydides was a political historian who was born and brought up in Athens, a city-state where politics was most important, accounting for Thucydides highly political perspective of history. Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War was an account of the struggle for powers between the leading Greek states of Athens and Sparta. The wars had inevitably dragged into participation almost all of Greece as all other cities was compelled to take sides. 23 The book has eight parts with the first part devoted to the explanation of the causes of the Peloponnesian War which occurred between 431 and 404. Book Five is striking not only because it was written in dialogue form but also because it was an extraordinary account illustrating Thucydides’ keen political insight of the international reality between states of unequal powers and means. Whilst Athens, along with Sparta, was the most powerful city militarily, Melos was a small neutral city with no means, military or otherwise, to fend off the impending invasion of Athens. This is a relevant book to the subject of international security because it deals with the politics of force, “including the moral or religious ideas that sustain or condemn it, and the circumstances that make it both necessary in the short term and dangerous for the future.”24 The Athens representative advised the Melians to voluntarily subjugate and spare themselves from the horrific onslaught of the Athenian force showed the dilemma of choices earlier discussed. The Melians were forced to take side as Athens and Sparta were locked in a political struggle for supremacy not unlike the struggle for world supremacy between the United States and the USSR after World War II. Previous to the war with Sparta, Athens maintained trade and commerce with the neutral Melians but the war made the Athenians saw Melos in a new light – an opportunity to show off their might as well as a threat that could happen if Sparta beat Athens to subjugating the city island. 25 Thus the Athenians declared “Your hatred doesn’t hurt us as much as your friendship. That would show us as weak to our subjects, whereas your hatred would be a proof of our power.”26 The Melians declined Athens’ offer of voluntary subjugation in lieu of a military offensive on three grounds: their position is just and the injustice of the Athenians in forcing a small neutral island-city will alert all other neutral states and see in Athens a potential enemy; the gods are on their side, and; the Spartans will lend them aid in their fight against the Athenians. It is evident that Hobbes theories on international security and the relations of nations had its origins in Thucydides. Much of the conversations between the Athenians and the Melians showcased the principles of the state or law of nature where man is constantly dissatisfied with his lot and his never-ending quest for supremacy and superiority. Likewise, a reading of Machiavelli will show that he approached history in the same light as Thucydides – by explaining events in terms of natural laws and approached politics in a realistic manner, the first Renaissance humanist to do so.27 On the international scale, nations aspire for what other have that they do not have out of competition, or out of fear that the others will pose a threat to their existence or simply in the name of glory. In the dialogue between the Athenians and the Melians, it is evident that the Athenians were driven to subjugate the Melians for all of the above factors: they wanted to expand their empire to be better than the Spartans; they wanted to make sure that the Melians do not pose a threat to them as the latter may join the Spartans with whom they have kinship, and; they wanted to show to their subjects and their enemies what a superior city Athens was for being able to subjugate the Melians. 28 The implication of the Peloponnesian Wars to international security is that it exposes the problem of choices by nations in the constant search for security. Powerful nations are not content to lie within their territories but have to go beyond their boundaries to ensure that they are secure and are not threatened by the existence of other nations. It is not enough therefore that there is stability at home but that stability must be secured all around them as well even if it means eliminating the purported threat. This is a philosophy that finds basis in contemporary events as illustrated by the invasion of the United States in conjunction with most of the western world on Iraq in the 1990s. Another contemporary reality in international security mirrored in the Peloponnesian Wars is by way of Athens’ heedless reliance on power and forces to ensure security. It would seem that the primary lesson of the Peloponnesian Wars is that prudence should be exercised by a nation in opting for the use of violence and force to ensure security. The act initiated by Athens for the purpose of controlling others and its presumption that it’s growing power need to be flexed by subjugating neighboring cities was what actually induced Sparta and its allies to coalesce and fight it which ultimately ended in Athens’ total defeat. This was of course, an unintended effect but nevertheless occurred. In retrospect, Athens could have used a defensive strategy that would entail negotiations with enemies and potential enemies to ensure its security but because it was rash in the use of power, which it had miscalculated, it met instead its collective death. 29 The relevance of the particular lesson on the appropriate use of force in ensuring security reflected in Thucydides’ Peloponnesian Wars can be applied to the two World Wars. In the first World War, for example, the decision to take the offensive was already cemented in the minds of the European alliance that the minute the negotiations between Austria and Serbia broke down after the assassination of the Austrian Archduke, the offensive was immediately taken slamming down any moves for another political settlement. This has parallelism to the Athenian move in Melos – the heedless use of miscalculated power. Conclusion International security is a pervasive prevalent issue at present made more so by the events that took place during September 11, 2001. Globalisation and free trade further complicate this dilemma. The works of Thucydides, primarily the Peloponnesian Wars, and Thomas Hobbes, chiefly the Leviathan, could well provide the present generation clues and lessons on how international security should be dealt with and appreciated. Despite the fact that these writers lived and wrote in the 5th and 17th centuries, respectively, their insights as to security and the use of force are timeless and relevant even to these days. For Thucydides, the use of force and power should always come with prudence, with the thought that it might lead to worse things for the user which are unintended in the first place. Thomas Hobbes, on the other hand, gave us a lesson on the nature of humans applicable on a larger scale to nations and states. Hobbes believed that it is in human nature, and therefore states, to consistently court violence out of the need to ensure his, and on the part of states, its security. The implication is that states will not hesitate to use force to compete with other states, to ensure its security and out of fear that other states will eventually amass capabilities sufficient to turn against it and to show off, like a peacock, to the rest of the world its superior force and power. Hobbes advocated a leviathan, a stronger power to curb this propensity. Today, although no such single force, despite organizations like the United Nations, can approximate Hobbes’ concept of an international leviathan, the pressure of world opinion of a highly globalised world, seemed at present, the only sufficient force to reckon with. Bibliography Booth, K., Theory of World Security (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Clinton, D.W. The Realist Tradition and Contemporary International Relations (LSU Press, 2007). Debrix, F., Re-envisioning Peacekeeping: The United Nations and the Mobilization of Ideology (University of Minnesota Press, 1999). de Romilly, J., A Short History of Greek Literature (University of Chicago Press, 1985). Donnelly, Jack, Realism and International Relations, (Cambridge University Press, 2000). Hobbes, T., Leviathan: Leviathan, Aloysius Martinich, (Broadview Press, 2007). Hutcheon, Pat Duffy, Leaving the Cave: Evolutionary Naturalism in Social-Scientific Thought, (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996). Kolodziej, E. A. “Chapter 3: The Foundation of Security Studies: Hobbes, Clausewitz and Thucydides,“ Security and International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2005). Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Quentin Skinner & Russell Price, eds. (Cambridge University Press) Thucydides. A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian Wars. Richard Crawlay, translator, Robert Strassler, editor ( ). Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Steven Lattimore, translator (Hackett Publishing, 1998) Womersley, D. A Companion to Literature from Milton to Blake (Blackwell Publishing, 2000) Read More