Analysis of the russian-ukrainian conflict from the perspective of the Thucydides Trap

Abstract

Those who do not know their past will be doomed to repeat it, pointed out the North American philosopher originally from Spain, George Santayana. That is why, throughout history, politicians, historians, diplomats, and the military, among many other experts and connoisseurs of history and philosophy, have analyzed the well-known "Thucydides trap" referring to tension with lethal consequences. that is created when an emerging power challenges a hegemonic power, thus creating the necessary conditions for the start of an armed conflict.
This phenomenon was originally raised by the Athenian philosopher, soldier, and historian Thucydides, who is credited with being the father of scientific historiography and the school of political realism, all this as a result of his narration "History of the Peloponnesian War". In this work, Thucydides takes as his starting point the well-known "Dialogue of Melos," in which the Athenians, as an invading force, open a space for dialogue with the invaded, in this case, the Melians. It should be noted that there is no historically accurate evidence for the existence of these conversations. This is pointed out by the author Alfonso Gómez Lobo in the study entitled "The dialogue of Melos and the historical vision of Thucídides" when he proposes the following (Lobo): "It is very unlikely that Thucídides' text literally reproduces the conversations, if it is these took place." (p. 248).
Now, what is currently known as the Thucydides Trap or Thucydides Theory, is a principle or concept originally raised by the American political scientist Graham T. Allison and proposed as the title of his article published in 2015, referring to the latent possibility of an armed conflict caused by the fear of a hegemonic power of losing its power, influence, and authority before an emerging power, originally in the article the historical event of the Peloponnesian war between Sparta as a hegemonic power against Athens is applied as an emerging power, to the context of the rivalry between the United States and China. In this article, this theory will be applied to the scenario raised in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, in this case, Russia being the hegemonic power and Ukraine the emerging one.