Abstract
The article draws a comparison between the Peloponnesian War between ancient Sparta and Athens, on the one hand, and Russia and the West, on the other. Rather than economic and utilitarian ethics, the author proposes that aggression on the part of oppressive as opposed to democratic regimes is driven by the fear of future insignificance. Democracies represent a threat to autocracies not so much by their military power and expansionist politics, but by their very existence, openness, and the freedoms they grant their citizens. This framework is used to explain Russia’s imperialist aggression and oppression of its neighbors and its fear of democracy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Edie, James, ed. 1965. Russian philosophy, Chicago: Quadrangle Books.
Gress, David. 1998. From Plato to Nato: the idea of the West and its opponents. New York: Free Press.
Herodotus. 1987. The history. Greene David tr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kaplan, Fred. 2022. A bridge to far. In The New York review of books, 27–28.
Mickunas, Algis. 2019. Anarchies in collision. New York: Niva Science Publishers.
Mickunas, Algis, and Joseph Pilotta. 2020. Carceral civilizations. New York: Nova Press.
The Economist. February 26, 2022a.
The Economist. March 12, 2022b.
Thucydides. 1996. A comprehensive guide to the Peloponnesian war. Crawley Richard tr. Strassler Robert B. Ed. New York: Free Press.
Vlasenko, Alexey. 2022. Community, Apr. 26.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Statements and Declarations
The author has no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
