April 7, 2015
WWTS? What would Thucydides say?
Glad you asked. This is World War I week for our senior course in Newport. That’s when I lecture on the statecraft of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and review America’s part in the Great War. The conflict remains a cipher in large measure, fully a century after armies dug trenches along the Western Front and stalemate set in.
Historians still quarrel about its causes, and wonder why the fighting dragged on for so long—and at such frightful cost—considering the modest goals the combatants entertained. Seldom is consulting classical antiquity a bad way to grapple with such complex, or mercurial, or obscure matters. Over the years the father of history has helped me puzzle out topics from Taiwan’s defense strategy to the impact of demographic decline on grand strategy to China’s and Russia’s aircraft-carrier ambitions.
No comments:
Post a Comment