NOTHING truly fundamental has changed in humanity. Sure, we traded skins for suits and spears for smart bombs but at our core we have remained largely the same, especially when it comes to the dynamics of power, arrogance and empire.
There is nothing new under the sun; watching the Trump administration, flushed with victory after its kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduros, exult in the admittedly unmatched military might of the US army, one cannot help but recall what Thucydides wrote in the Melian dialogues some 2,500 years ago. Speaking from the perspective of the arrogant Athenians as they threatened the small island of Melos: “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Considered the cornerstone of ‘political realism’ the quote encapsulates the mood prevailing in Washington, D.C., where power is the ultimate arbiter and appealing to morality, norms and law (as the Melians did) is to be despised and mocked. The ultimate arbiter of what is right and moral is now the US president himself, and only him. “The only thing that can stop me is … my own morality. My own mind,” says Trump. This is instructive, given the state of both his morals and his mind. But while we can be appalled, perhaps even a bit terrified that even the Assyrian warrior kings provided more justifications for their actions than Trump does, we should not be surprised.
After all, this is the America of Pete Hesgeth and Stephen Miller, the latter of whom recently brushed off Danish concerns about an American seizure of Greenland, saying “you can talk all you want about international niceties … but we live … in the real world that is governed by strength…force…that is governed by power”.
It was an unconscious echo of Pompey during the Roman civil war. Around 80 BC, Pompey laid siege to the Italian city of Messanna and when the governor of that city appealed to Roman law, telling Pompey his siege was illegal and that his forces must be withdrawn Pompey responded: “Cease quoting the law to men with swords.”
In a sense, the honesty is refreshing, and the reaction in Europe at least is amusing. Consider that when the Maduros were taken, European countries responded with the ‘we are monitoring the situation’ line of diplomatic non-speak, along with the ritualistic references to democracy, international law, human rights and free and fair elections.
‘Cease quoting the law to men with swords’.
But when Greenland again entered the chat, those very same countries recoiled in horror. Denmark in particular is aghast, and rightly so, given that this is possibly the most obsequiously Atlanticist and pro-US of all the European countries. Now we see the spectacle of Danish leaders and analysts reminding the US that their country has supported America’s past imperial wars, as former Danish parliamentarian Martin Henriksen complained, tweeting: “I am also surprised that an American president can refer to an ally in that way when we have sent Danish soldiers out into the world to kill Islamic terrorists before they could hit the USA.” This complaint reminds me of the old Twitter joke: “I never thought leopards would eat MY face,” sobs the woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.”
Nor has it dawned on Europe that its unstinting support for Israel’s genocide and repeated violations of whatever remains of international law means that their protests now fall on deaf ears. After all, this is the world they themselves have helped build, more through action than inaction, and now they face the consequences. It’s also amusing to see Trump tell Denmark: “The fact they had a boat land there 500 years ago does not mean they own the land.”
The error here is that Europe somehow forgot the eternal lesson that Empire knows no allies, it knows only subjects and vassals. And there is no doubt which category Europe is in when it comes to the world according to Trump.
There are lessons for Empire as well, and these too are as old as recorded history. Take the case of Athens, so arrogant in its treatment of Melos: the Athenian military captured the island, massacred the men and took the women and children as slaves, but the afterglow was short-lived; buoyed by victory, the following year Athens launched an expedition to subdue the island of Sicily and failed miserably. The Athenian forces were utterly routed with the result that, in a decade, Athens was forced to surrender to their Spartan rivals. Similarly, Pompey, so proud with his sword unsheathed, eventually died alone and betrayed when the tide turned, as tides tend to do.
But this is cold comfort; for now, the US remains and will continue to remain the world’s pre-eminent military power with the unique ability to project power anywhere in the world, and more than its enemies, it is its allies who should beware.
The writer is a journalist.
Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2026
