Ancient Greek reflections on imperial power have unsettling resonance in the geopolitics of Donald Trump.
‘We live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.’ White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s comment concerning Greenland took me back to the confrontation between presidents Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office in February 2025. Trump harangued Zelensky with the refrain: ‘You don’t have the cards.’ By implicit contrast, the Americans had them all, or almost all – perhaps the Russians had a few. At Davos in January the Canadian prime minister encapsulated the point with Thucydides’ apophthegm: ‘The strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.’