Where is the devil if everyone here is an angel?

WHAT has entered the lexicon of political philosophy and theory as the Thucydides Trap is recently vivid, but it is not new at all. It comes from far back when ancient Athenian historian and military general, Thucydides, wrote his classic book: The History of the Peloponnesian War. Using his skill as a critical historian and experienced soldier, Thucydides opined that seeing the rapid economic and political growth of Athens, the Spartans would inevitably go on a war path. Thucydides, otherwise, predicted that war had become inevitable between the Athenians and the Spartans. Dominant powers, great powers or super-powers, depending on what one calls them, in the past or in the present, do not accept being overtaken without a fight.

With the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the stand-off between China and the USA over Taiwan presently, the world is definitely facing some kind of Thucydides Trap. As every tension and conflict seems to escalate there is no sign that the so-called great powers of the world have any appetite for negotiated peace.

The appetite is for war and the burning desire to overcome the enemy in battle and declare victory. And this should concern all of us because unmitigated escalation towards war will lead to the ‘state of nature,’ a ‘war of all against all’ that Thomas Hobbes described.

For those of us that have been following the present ‘ arms race,’ it is shocking what size and kinds of weapons of mass-destruction countries have all along been building behind the world’s back. If the money and the science had been invested in medical research and the development of medicines and other healthy projects the world would be a safer place to be in than it is today. Accompanying the brandishing of weapons of mass-destruction is the deployment of massive weapons of massdeception.

Big countries are not telling the truth about their real interests and intentions in the ongoing conflicts and tensions. All the belligerents and their supporters claim to be saviours that are here to protect democracy, human rights, peace and other furnitures of modernity and civilisation. The vulgar and also simplistic question, then, would be where is the devil if everyone here is an angel?

Destined for war?

I have previously mentioned the work of Singaporean diplomat and scholar, Kishore Mahbubani, who predicted the present state of international affairs where the rise of China would existentially threaten the West. I am not mentioning John Pilger who long raised alarm claiming that the US was building military bases in countries that surround China in preparation for war.

As recently as 2017, American political scientist, Graham Allison, published an important book: Destined for War. In this book Allison invokes the “Thucydides Trap” and spells out how the rise of China and the fear of decline by the USA will lead to war. The Chinese have even cited Allison in their own explanation of what is happening around them, the USA and Taiwan. Allison explains that “Thucydides’s Trap refers to the natural, inevitable discombobulation that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power . . .[and] when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, the resulting structural stress makes a violent clash the rule, not the exception.”

In psychological terms, if we can drag Sigmund Freud into political observation and analysis, a kind of ‘death-drive’ seems to propel countries towards war and not peace.

Both the West and the East of the world have interesting philosophies concerning war. Their ancient philosophers, just like their modern political scientists and theorists, had a lot to say about war.

Machiavelli, for instance said, “there is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.” Present America seems to be living by this Machiavellian dictum.

In ancient China, the Sun Tsu, in his Art of War classic said, “appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak” and “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” It is interesting how modern western and eastern countries seem to be living by the rules of their ancient philosophers.

A point of no return

I follow the works and publications of American researchers in their different universities and Think-Tanks. I like most the works of the dissidents, the dissenting voices that question the directions the American establishment is taking. Some of these are not just your professors but also retired army generals and tired intelligence practitioners. One of these insiders recently raised an alarming question.

He claimed that with the money that the USA has injected into the war in Ukraine a retreat or a loss by Ukraine will be an American military defeat by Russia, which the American establishment does not even want to imagine.

The same interlocutor noted that Russia has politically and existentially invested in the war in Ukraine and retreat and defeat are unthinkable.

In that way both the USA and Russia are looking for victory in Ukraine and so by any means necessary.

It is a point of no return with no visible way back. The only possibility in this stalemate is escalation. Both super-powers have not only invested human resources, money and expensive weapons but also national and historical egos that will not be bruised without cataclysmic consequences. The scenarios are scary in their multiplicity and all the doomsday meaning, to say the very least.

Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe writes from Gezina, Pretoria, in South Africa. Contacts: Decoloniality2019@gmail.com.