He thinks that many see Georgia’s parliamentary elections in autumn 2012 through either rose-tinted or dark glasses, yet he claims that neither of the two options gives an adequate picture of the situation on the ground. Kaupo Känd, an international diplomat from Estonia, analyses Georgia’s internal politics. This applies to the great and the small alike.” “The moral of the story is: being truly values-based is useful and what is truly useful is also based on values.

“What the Athenians had considered useful turned out to be both morally wrong and pragmatically harmful,” concludes Laidre who is also a historian specialising in ancient history. However, according to Laidre, the story of the Melians did not end with this: Athens, blinded by arrogance, eventually lost the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC, its empire was dismantled and the Melians, who had escaped to exile, could return to their homes. Consequently, the Athenians kill all the Melian men and enslave all the Melian women and children. The Melian Dialogues culminate with the Melians’ decision not to give in to pressure. ‘the strong do what they can and the weak do what they must’. The Athenians answered they had a right to rule simply due to their superior force, claiming that the question of right applies only when both sides have equal power to enforce it, i.e. The Athenians wanted the islanders to submit to them, but the Melians asked for negotiations to maintain their neutrality. Melos, a small and sparsely populated island, had declared its neutrality in the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens, a great naval power. Laidre quotes from a 2008 essay by Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves titled ‘In Remembrance of the Melians,’ which recounts a story familiar to us from Thucydides’ ‘Peloponnesian Wars’.

In the opening article, diplomat Mikael Laidre explores the philosophical foundations of Estonia’s foreign policy, which he defines as values-based pragmatism.

Thucydides peloponnesian war sparknotes