Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War believing that it was a good picture of "the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same way, be repeated in the future.” This paper will present a comparison between the time of Thucydides and how the International system has reflected certain aspects that are contained in the document. It will attempt to address the possibilities of oncoming systemic war, concepts of trust, and the earlier statement of Thucydides. Terms that are important to this argument are anarchy, security dilemma, and balance of powers. Anarchy is the system that world politics works under: with the presence of no prominent authority, any state can do what it chooses on the international stage. The notion of security dilemma rises out of the fear of other states building up their forces and becoming a larger threat to all of the other states. The tie between anarchy, security dilemma, and life in a sovereign state is the balance of powers; which "aims at primarily to preserve peace and the status quo." Thucydides' balance of power involved two states: Athens and Sparta. After the Persian war, Athens had become a very powerful military state, and began to assimilate other states they had recently saved in the Persian War. Athens justified their actions by suggesting that, having won the war, their rights to become an empire were prevelent. They then built walls around their new territories and continued to increase their military power. This worried the Spartans because if Athens were to attack them it would be difficult to counter attack. Sparta, however, did not respond by building up their forces to maintain the balance. The Spartans acted slowly and tried to avoid the conflict. However, when the smaller states went to Sparta and ple...
