When the big powers bullied the weak but often still ended up losing
It was repugnant, grotesque, disgusting.
For the first time in history, the whole world was able to watch a big power bully a smaller country on live TV. The trivialization of a national suffering and the open mockery of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had been broadcast across the globe. But unlike President Macron of France, and Prime Minister Starmer of the United Kingdom, who had visited the Trump White House earlier the same week and attempted to placate the US President by indulging his whims, Zelensky had the courage to respond to the accusations, make his case against the impossibility of dealing diplomatically with Russia without strength and security guarantees, and defend himself and his stance. He did not bow down, despite the provocative attack.
As a Greek from Cyprus, I have lived in a land that throughout its long history has been conquered, through both diplomacy and war, by all the mighty powers of the Mediterranean. I understand intimately that conversations much like the shocking spectacle we all witnessed in its raw “red in tooth and claw” form have recurred thousands of times throughout history – albeit as a rule behind closed doors. The first person to document one such conversation verbatim was, in fact, the Greek historian Thucydides, who covered the twenty-seven-year-long Peloponnesian War in the fifth century BC. The highlight of his History is the famous dialogue between the Athenian delegation and the leaders of Melos, a small island in the Aegean sea.