As Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, listened in increasing dismay to President Donald Trump’s display of global whataboutism at the Oval Office on Feb. 28, it was clear he had not braced himself for the United States’ foreign policy shift from self-professed global watchdog over the values of democracy and liberalism to hard-line international pragmatism. Zelenskyy’s appeals — the few he was allowed to voice — were to principles of fairness and justice backed up by ideals: The strong should not invade the weak at will.
The innocent should not die. Allies should not be suddenly judged on the criterion of: “What’s in it for us?” And victims, of course, should not be held up as aggressors. Who’s surprised? It’s an age-old debate.
The political historian Thucydides anticipated the Trump-Zelenskyy conversation in detail in his “History of the Peloponnesian War,” in which the islanders of Melos make a case for their freedom to Athens, which wants from them only surrender and tribute. The Melians have shown no aggression, but the Athenians need to build their empire up against Sparta. The context may be different, but the issue faced by the ancient Melian delegation is the same as that faced by Zelenskyy: How do you compel a more powerful body to observe what you, the weaker state, call the laws of justice, or fairness, or loyalty? Thucydides had his Melians try every argument a nation could.
There is the argument from utility: It is more useful fo.
