More than 2,400 years ago, Athens was the strongest city-state in the Greek world. It had a powerful navy, a vast alliance network, and enormous influence.
Sound familiar?
Athens made three mistakes.
It punished and threatened its allies. In 454 BC, Athens moved the alliance treasury from the island of Delos to Athens and spent allied money on its own buildings. In 416 BC the island of Melos refused to join. Athens killed the men and sold the women and children into slavery. This is not how allies treat each other.
It fought a war it did not need. In 415 BC, Athens sent most of its fleet to attack Syracuse in Sicily. Syracuse had not attacked Athens. By 413 BC, the fleet was sunk, and about 40,000 men were dead or enslaved.
Its politics stopped working. In 406 BC, the assembly executed six of its own generals after they won the battle of Arginusae. In 404 BC, after the surrender to Sparta, a faction of thirty Athenians took power and killed about 1,500 citizens.
Sound familiar again? What Trump and the Republicans are doing is not as severe, but the concept is the same.
Trump and the Republicans are punishing and threatening allies. Tariffs on allies, threatening Canada and Denmark with invasion, threatening to abandon NATO, and interfering in elections.
Trump and the Republicans are fighting an unneeded war in Iran. It is costing billions of dollars daily, using up its limited munitions stockpile, pulling resources from other critical regions, demonstrating to the world how vulnerable it is to a middle power awakened by decades of sanctions, and Trump and the Republicans have no way out.
They are sabotaging their own government. The federal government shut down for 43 days starting 1 October 2025. The Department of Homeland Security shut down for 76 days, the longest shutdown in American history. Government institutions have been gutted. Experts and professionals have been replaced with political loyalists, and corruption is the norm, not the exception.
Sparta defeated Athens in 404 BC. Thucydides, who fought in the war, wrote the reason: Athenian politicians fought each other for power, and Sparta used the mistakes they made while fighting.
Today, Russia does not need to invade the U.S. to neutralize it. Russia just needs the Republicans to stay in power.
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