The Melian Dialogue

If imperialism and the drive for political hegemony are the motives of the Athenians, political realism is their driving ethos. They pursue their goals solely out of practical self-interest, without regard for the moral implications of their actions.

Political realism holds that unlike individual citizens, whose interactions are governed by laws, political entities relate to one another in a Hobbesian state of nature: The strong will always seek to dominate the weak. Thucydides has the Athenians state this doctrine succinctly: “The dominant exact what they can and the weak concede what they must” (Section 90). Since “under some permanent compulsion of nature wherever [the strong] can rule, they will,” nothing can limit imperial expansion except an opposing force of equal strength (Section 105). Finally, no ideology supersedes the law of expediency (democracies seek hegemony no less than autocracies), nor does any potential role reversal: “we follow it in the knowledge that anyone else given the same power as us would do the same” (Section 105). These Athenian assertions have become core statements of classical political realism.

The ideas explored in the “The Melian Dialogue” established Thucydides as one of the originators of the doctrine of political realism. This dialogue was of particular interest during the Cold War, as the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union in many ways mirrored the one between Athens and Sparta during the Peloponnesian War. The proxy wars in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, where the USA and USSR both sought to expand their influence with puppet governments, speak to the Athenians’ assertion that nations will exercise their power wherever they are able to. That both nations did so regardless of markedly different political and economic systems would seem to confirm the Athenians’ declaration that expediency supersedes ideology.

Later seminal authors in classical political realism include Niccolò Machiavelli, who, like Thucydides’ Athenians, divorced morality from politics, and Thomas Hobbes, who, like the Athenians, situated the drive for practical gain and power in human nature.

Ironically, the Athenians begin their argument with an appeal to justice, claiming that their role in repelling the Persian conquest gives them a right to rule the Greek world. When the Melians, predictably, reject this rationale, the Athenians swiftly abandon it as an unnecessary pretext. Ultimately, they contend, it doesn’t matter whether their conquest of Melos is just. They will do it because it benefits them and because they can.

As the Melian delegation points out before the dialogue begins, there is no way for them to “win” this debate. Athenian aggression against a smaller, weaker, neutral city-state is self-evidently unjust, but no power exists that can compel the Athenians to behave in a just manner. As a result of this lopsided dynamic, the Melians find themselves forced to accept the Athenians’ framing, casting justice itself as an expedient: “there is advantage in […] preserving the principle of the common good […] anyone who finds himself in danger should receive fair and equitable treatment” (Section 90). The Melians then invoke the retributive nature of justice, warning the Athenians of the “massive retaliation you would face as an example to others should you fall from power” (Section 90). The Melian appeal to justice relies on an imagined future power that might be able to enforce that justice. Thus, even as they argue for just relations between political entities, they are forced to recognize that the more powerful Athenians will be swayed only by self-interest.

The Athenians subsume the Melians’ arguments into their doctrine of expediency, arguing that while justice may exist, it governs relations between equals only: “questions of justice only arise when there is equal power to compel” (Section 89). In this manner, they neutralize the point.