mhaze,

You're confusing description with endorsement, and then pretending that distinction doesn't matter.

Yes, Thucydides was describing how power works. That isn’t in dispute. What is in dispute is whether he thought that was something to admire or something to be wary of. The Athenians don’t come off as wise realists in his account. They come off as confident, ruthless, and blind to the consequences.

We know how that story ends.

"Realpolitik reigns supreme" is a statement about behaviour, not a justification for it. Saying states act in self-interest does not logically entail therefore there is no meaningful role for law or norms. That leap is doing all the work in your argument, and it's never defended.

And your examples don’t actually prove what you think they do. Russia can invade Ukraine. China can take Taiwan or the Spratlys. India can dig in over Kashmir. Of course they can. That just tells us who has the muscle, not whether those moves are legitimate, sustainable, or smart in the long run.

Force explains what happens. It doesn’t magically turn it into something that should be accepted as right.

International law isn't "lipstick on a pig". It's the pig's fence. Imperfect, breached, sometimes jumped, but still the only thing that distinguishes a rules-based order from a world where every act of force is justified simply because it succeeded.

If your position is merely that law cannot fully restrain power, that's banal and uncontroversial. If your position is that law therefore has no relevance, then you're not describing the world, you're arguing for its permanent moral bankruptcy.

You're not having a very good run at the moment, are you?

" What is in dispute is whether he thought that was something to admire or something to be wary of. "

Read the whole of Thukydides Histories (three times in my case) and then we'll talk.

"That just tells us who has the muscle, not whether those moves are legitimate, sustainable, or smart in the long run."

Realpolitik. Who has the muscle is all that matters.

mhaze,

Appealing to how many times you've read Thucydides isn't an argument. It's a credential, and it doesn't settle the question.

Saying "realpolitik, who has the muscle is all that matters" isn't analysis either. It's a description so thin it explains everything and therefore justifies nothing. By that logic, Athens was right, Rome was right, Hitler was right, Stalin was right. If they prevailed for a time, that's all the validation required.

But that's not insight, it's abdication.

If brute force were literally all that mattered, history would look very different. Empires wouldn't keep collapsing, states wouldn't bother lining up allies, and leaders wouldn't waste time dressing invasions up as "defensive" or "necessary". They do all that because power on its own isn't enough.

You're not describing reality in full. You're stopping the analysis at the moment power is exercised and declaring the rest irrelevant. That isn't realism. It's choosing not to think past the first move.

Trumpster,

By what "law" does Trump intend to take Greenland? You have an a-hole making the law, and his sycophantic followers agreeing.

Mhaze said- Read the whole of Thukydides Histories (three times in my case) and then we'll talk. Realpolitik. Who has the muscle is all that matters.

Answer- Sun Tzu talks about Realpolitik too in Chapter 1. There's a fair amount of sophistication involved with the concept of 'muscle' though. I guess there are some things AI can't yet do. Politics is essentially the exercise of power and negotiation as I understand, it is similar to military action but there are differences.

Let me know if I've missed something. Or maybe I need to read the requisite text three times first.

Either way I'll put Thukydides Histories on my reading list, thanks for the advice.

That's roughly my point, Canem Malum.

No one's denying that power matters. The disagreement is over whether "muscle" means brute force alone, or whether it includes alliances, legitimacy, negotiation, timing, and long-term cost. Sun Tzu was very clear that raw force is often the least efficient tool.

Reducing all of that to "who has the muscle is all that matters" flattens realpolitik into a slogan. It stops being analysis and turns into a tautology: whoever wins was strong, therefore strength is all that counts.

That's not how states actually behave, even very powerful ones.

So thanks, but mhaze really could have just done with a "Kudos" this time around. He's been having a rough time of it over the last few days.