Peloponnesian War-Cold War analogy

raharris1973

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The Athenian versus the Spartan alliances would not neatly be analogous to
NATO and Warsaw Pact.

Rather the Athenian and Spartan alliances would be more analogous to Warsaw Pact versus another Warsaw Pact.
 
The war has been read as an analogy of democratic, maritime state vs land oriented autocratic one. It's been read as analogy for pre-WW1 UK vs Germany , US vs Soviet Union and now US vs China.

It's not absolutely correct but "eh, close enough"
 
Really, it's more of a "let's gang up on the strong one" war; similar to Renaissance Italy, or the Sengoku Jidai, or 30 Years War. Internal conflict based on long-simmering tensions that has limited but very impactful outside intervention. Not a simplistic dichotomy of oligarchic Sparta vs. "democratic" Athens, or defensive Spartans vs. expansionist Athenians at any cost - at one point in the war, Sparta was willing to sell out all of its allies for peace, even suggesting that Sparta team up with Athens.
 
Really, it's more of a "let's gang up on the strong one" war; similar to Renaissance Italy, or the Sengoku Jidai, or 30 Years War. Internal conflict based on long-simmering tensions that has limited but very impactful outside intervention. Not a simplistic dichotomy of oligarchic Sparta vs. "democratic" Athens, or defensive Spartans vs. expansionist Athenians at any cost - at one point in the war, Sparta was willing to sell out all of its allies for peace, even suggesting that Sparta team up with Athens.

This.

Also remember that less than 100 years later SPARTA was doing the EXACT SAME THING AS ATHENS.

Every few years the balance of power would change, 1 city state would rise up and the others would band together to slap them down again. Occasionally the Persians would show up and everyone would stop fighting for 5 minutes to beat on the foreigners, before grabbing their spears and having a go at each other again.

Pretty much the entire history of Ancient Greece.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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The war has been read as an analogy of democratic, maritime state vs land oriented autocratic one. It's been read as analogy for pre-WW1 UK vs Germany , US vs Soviet Union and now US vs China.

It's not absolutely correct but "eh, close enough"

This is what I perceive the common view to be.

However, despite differences in style and internal governance between Athens and Sparta, it seems to me the "allies" of both cities were mostly coerced, and both took more than they gave from allies.
 
The war has been read as an analogy of democratic, maritime state vs land oriented autocratic one. It's been read as analogy for pre-WW1 UK vs Germany , US vs Soviet Union and now US vs China.

It's not absolutely correct but "eh, close enough"

Its the Dichotomy du jour. I'm sure the Peleoponnesian War will always be compared with the current concerns reflecting the zeitgeist.
 
This is what I perceive the common view to be.

However, despite differences in style and internal governance between Athens and Sparta, it seems to me the "allies" of both cities were mostly coerced, and both took more than they gave from allies.

This, right here. The Delian League was centered entirely around Athens and it's own priorities. So was the alliance Sparta made. One Warsaw Pact versus another is pretty apt.
 
This, right here. The Delian League was centered entirely around Athens and it's own priorities. So was the alliance Sparta made. One Warsaw Pact versus another is pretty apt.

That analogy could be equally apt for the relationship the US enjoyed among NATO and its allies during the Cold War. That is, first among equals. It just had a less-thuggish veneer than the Warsaw Pact. ;)
 
If the Warsaw Pact had been formed as a reaction to the formation of large opposing force and the USSR wasn't so focused on modernization it would be similar to the Peloponnesian League.

If the Warsaw Pact had been formed in reaction to a set of invasion attempts by an outside force and the USSR only became the controller of the other members later on and had an almost laissez-faire economy then it would be similar to the Delian League.

And no modern war even begins to resemble the Peloponnesian War so I won't try to make an analogy there.
 
This is what I perceive the common view to be.

However, despite differences in style and internal governance between Athens and Sparta, it seems to me the "allies" of both cities were mostly coerced, and both took more than they gave from allies.

If the Warsaw Pact had been formed as a reaction to the formation of large opposing force and the USSR wasn't so focused on modernization it would be similar to the Peloponnesian League.

If the Warsaw Pact had been formed in reaction to a set of invasion attempts by an outside force and the USSR only became the controller of the other members later on and had an almost laissez-faire economy then it would be similar to the Delian League.

And no modern war even begins to resemble the Peloponnesian War so I won't try to make an analogy there.

I think you are overthinking the analogy. It's not that every detail has to match, it's not that reality of things have to match. What matters is that perception matches.

Athens was seen as democratic, maritime state that relied on trade and soft power. Which is how UK and US saw themselves when they made the analogy. It didn't matter that neither Athens nor they were what people believed them to be, what mattered is how people then saw them and themselves.

While Sparta was seen as militaristic, autocratic, land oriented state. Which is how Imperial Germany, Soviet union and Chine were/are seen. It didn't matter that Sparta wasn't what Athenians wanted us to believe (Propaganda lying about your enemy? Surely not! :rolleyes: ). What mattered is how these states were seen and how that perception matched with perception of Sparta. Which, as I said earlier, was "clsoe enough".

It's same with "US as Rome", be it Pax Americana or "US in decline", analogies. They don't have to match in every single detail, they just need to match in broad picture with perception of people making the analogy.
 
This.

Also remember that less than 100 years later SPARTA was doing the EXACT SAME THING AS ATHENS.

Every few years the balance of power would change, 1 city state would rise up and the others would band together to slap them down again. Occasionally the Persians would show up and everyone would stop fighting for 5 minutes to beat on the foreigners, before grabbing their spears and having a go at each other again.

Pretty much the entire history of Ancient Greece.

As I understand it, after the Peloponnese War, Sparta was very dependent on Persia for maintaining their dominance over Greece.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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I would assert that NATO was perhaps the first alliance of its kind..

..and almost all prior alliances of approaching the the territorial extent of NATO were more similar to the Warsaw Pact in spirit than NATO.

NATO and Warsaw Pact however had in common that they were each a large geographic "chunk". This was a new feature in western history. Large globs of neighbors allied to each other, and not because they were simply under a common imperial occupation.

The pattern of alliances for most European history had always prior been the "striped" pattern. In this pattern (represented by the Triple Entente, the WWII Grand Alliance, the anti-Napoleonic coalitions, the 7 Years War alignments, and 30 years war alignments) generally next door neighbors to each other were enemies, and the neighbors of their enemies on the other side "the neighbors' neighbors" were the allies.

So historically - France and England usually opposed each other. France was usually against whoever was dominant in Germany (HRE & Prussia) France was usually allied with Sweden, Poland and the Ottoman Empire on the other side of Germany. France and Russia were only firmly drawn together after the partitions of Poland and unification of Germany put them in the "stripe" to the immediate west and east of Germany.

Or - American-Russian relations with each other being better in the middle 19th century than either ones relations with France.


Since WWII the "striped" alliance pattern has been a thing of the past. However, they have remained a usual M.O. in much of the rest of the world. For instance, Syrian-Iranian cooperation, especially against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Or Indian and Afghan overtures to each other combined with enmity against Pakistan. Soviet-Indian-Vietnamese cold war collaboration against China, etc.

What could have resulted an earlier historic replacement of striped alliance patterns, with enduring "chunky" alliances, several countries deep, including many sovereign yet neighboring countries choosing to be allied for decades.

Or would chunky alliances at any point before 1945 have merely been an example or empire versus empire, or Warsaw Pact versus Warsaw Pact?
 
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