The Sicilian Expedition

The Sicilian Expedition

In many ways, the Iraq war has now become the American version of Athen's Sicilian Expedition. There are, of course, many superficial similarities, but some day I will get into the deeper aspects and see if the average Athenian's view of the Sicilian expedition and why it was necessary bears any resemblance to the modern American's view of the war in Iraq.

The main idea though is that we have an empire that just emerged from a major war using a minor and unconnected causus belli to declare war on a smaller, but relatively powerful independent nation. The empire, with the full backing of its people, sends out a huge military expedition that essentially comprises the bulk of their military. Due to the far flung nature of the enterprise, the associated expenses are also a major drain on the finances of the empire.

Because the original goal of the planners of the expedition was different than the publicly announced goal, and because the planners were more interested in their own glory than any final goal, the war was plagued with uncertainty at the highest levels. This uncertainty led to confusion and contradiction in executing the war which resulted in several reversals even though the empire's military forces were superior in every way when compared to the rest of the world at that time. Frequently the civilian leaders ignored the assessments of the war from the commanders in the field.

In the end, the war dragged on for several years without accomplishment until the empire withdrew its forces. Because it was so badly depleted both militarily and economically, the empire's allies and tributaries, seething with resentment for decades, began to rebel. The empire's traditional enemies took their weakness as an invitation to renew hostilities to the point where the empire could no longer defend its own allies (leading to further defections) and was so weak that it could not defend its own territories. The resulting economic and political crises that followed saw the end of democracy in the empire and a quick succession of ruinous governments that could not prevent (and in some cases hastened) the fall of the empire.

It should be remembered that after the end of the second Peloponnesian War, Athens fades from greatness in history forever.