NATO is the Delian League 2.0

 During the 19th century, the US elites' emulation of classical Athens' slave-owning democracy led to the American Civil War. In the 21st century, the imitation of Athens' military alliance by NATO is about to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. If things are to improve, Americans should overcome this propensity to emulate political and military models from 2500 years ago.

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Between 479 and 431 BC, the Greek world was militarily and economically dominated by Athens, which during the wars with Persia formed an alliance of Greek city-states, becoming its leader for 50 years.

The members of the alliance were obliged to contribute money, ships or soldiers to the military operations decided by the Athenians. Athens' competitors in the Greek world were those who had joined the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta. We can more easily understand the conflict between the two leagues if we make an analogy - quite common during the Cold War - with NATO, organized and led by the USA, and the Warsaw Pact, the organization led by Moscow.

Many scholars claim that the real purpose of the formation of the Delos League by the Athenians was in fact the defeat of Sparta and the dissolution of the Peloponnesian League. After 460 BC, Athens' efforts led to its transformation into an informal empire, undeclared as such, a situation comparable to the transformation of the United States into a global hegemon after 2000.

No historical analogy is perfect, but this one applies quite well to postwar American developments. Both Athens and the United States  created politico-military alliances after major conflicts - with Persia in the case of Athens, with Nazi Germany in the case of the United States - namely the League of Delos and NATO, and they maintained and expanded these even after the danger which led to their creation disappeared.

Both states had the same democratic organization of society, the same trade-based economic orientation, the same security needs (the safety of maritime trade routes). In both cases, we are dealing with two informal empires, to which those states who needed military protection joined voluntarily, not through Roman-type conquests. At least initially, the members of both alliances enjoyed economic and military advantages which flowed from them. To enforce compliance, Athens and the US in some cases placed military garrisons or bases in allied states whose allegiance was deemed problematic.

In both the Athenian and the American cases, the hegemon insisted on the adoption of democracy by all members of the alliance and on contributions in troops, ships or money (as now in Ukraine) to joint defense or expansion efforts. Over time, however, the leaders of the alliance became tyrannical, seriously violating the sovereignty or prosperity of member states, which generated centrifugal tendencies. 

The similarities do not end here. In the case of both Athens and the United States, we are dealing with two maritime superpowers, less capable of winning wars against continental states, as illustrated by the defeats of Athens in Egypt or Sicily and of those of the United States in Vietnam or Afghanistan. Both the Athenians and the Americans made a fatal error of over-extending the geographical reach and the membership of their alliances. (Incidentally, UK's Boris Johnson - a great admirer of Pericles - is also a staunch supporter of Nato's expansion in Ukraine.)

The use of the Athenian politico-military alliance model by the US began in full force after 2001, when the leadership of American foreign policy was monopolized by the neoconservatives, led by Blinken, Nuland&Kagan . The latter's father, Donald Kagan, was a history professor at Yale and the author of a 4-volume history of the Peloponnesian War. It seems, therefore, that the father's influence on his son was profound. American neoconservatives became fans of the Delos League model, as well as followers of the theories of the causes of war authored by Thucydides, whose writings were misinterpreted in such a way as to make a military confrontation with China and / or Russia appear inevitable.

Likewise, the Athenian model largely explains NATO's change of strategy after the demise of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. Just as Athens actively contributed to the disbandment of the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta and then expanded, the United States decided after 1997 to expand and include into NATO former members of the Warsaw Pact in Central and Eastern Europe. Instead of being abolished after 1989, NATO instead became an offensive alliance and an essential military tool in perpetuating American global hegemony.

Classical Athens had a competitor who was capable of defeating it: Sparta. Until recently the US had none. Since 2014, however, the United States has acquired its own "Sparta"...