Many thanks to readers for comments about our “Thucydides – Part 1.” For those who missed it the link is http://www.cumber.com/thucydides-part-1/.
In this part 2 we must first offer an apology to Professor Graham Allison. An astute reader caught a typo on a third occurrence of his first name, deep in the text of part 1. Three editors and I missed that typo. Since all errors, in the end, are the sole property of the author, I personally ask Professor Allison to forgive my error.
Readers are invited to watch an exceptionally instructive recent interview with Graham Allison, recorded on April 21. Allison ranges widely on the Thucydides Trap and lessons from ancient Greek history that reach into modernity. Note his analysis of the East and South China Seas, the role of Taiwan, and the alliance of convenience between Russia and China. Also listen to how he views Europe today. We recommend devoting 15 minutes to view the full YouTube interview at https://www.youtube.com/embed/VAyPZ9NO70k&sns=em. The title, if you have to search for it independently, is “5 Minute Insights: Professor Graham Allison on the U.S. and China Today.”
Now to Thucydides – Part 2.
In part 1 we noted the discussion of the North Korean mountain collapse that followed last September’s nuclear test there. We speculated about this collapse’s being the motivation behind Kim’s changing posture. We wondered what the US intelligence apparatus knew and when. Or was this hugely negative North Korean development just good luck for the US? Did a leak of radioactive material into China spur China into action? Did Beijing tell Pyongyang, “Enough is enough?” Is that what eventually got the two Koreas and the US and China to work at the new détente? Could it be that the NK nuclear failure wiped out so much of their program that it forced Kim to sue for peace in a way that makes him save face by looking heroic? Does Kim face a nuclear catastrophe of Chernobyl proportions? (Here’s a story on the aftermath of Chernobyl and continuing radiation damage: http://time.com/5255663/chernobyl-disaster-book-anniversary/.) Is this a Fukushima-like disaster? (Here’s reporting on the continuing flow of radioactive water from the plant into the ocean: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/03/29/national/seven-years-radioactive-water-fukushima-plant-still-flowing-ocean-study-finds-.Wumg48gh0kh.)
(It is worth remembering that 10 years ago the previous dictator Kim blew up the cooling tower that was the most prominent symbol of NK’s plutonium production program. He used that act as a teaser to prompt negotiations, but three years later he was back to his old ways. See https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/world/asia/27iht-korea.1.14044540.html.)
Reminder: The three prongs of a Thucydides Trap are fear, national interests, and honor.
The present summation of the Korean T-Trap situation looks like this: Kim saves face (T-Trap honor); South Korea gets relief (T-Trap fear relief); China gets a Korean buffer in place without nuclear risk (T-Trap national interests); the US president gets a political victory; and the US defense establishment accepts a reprieve from war. (Donald Trump’s administration is affected by all three prongs of the T-Trap.)
With détente, everybody wins, at least, temporarily. Thucydides cites the 30 years’ peace in Greece as proof that a détente can happen. Graham Allison notes how the periods of peace are so fruitful. And he warns about how they do not always last.
Trump lovers credit the President. They support his Twitter diplomacy and “rocket man” threats. They credit him with successful belligerency. He is seen as purposefully posturing the US as the mighty and the righteous. He gets credit for supporting the Olympics in South Korea and for publicly displaying that support through the drama of Vice-President Pence’s and First Daughter Ivanka’s attendance at those games. And Trump is lauded for facilitating the détente with the cooperation and assistance of China. In his Michigan speech on Saturday, Trump took full credit for the Korean Peninsula détente, and he attributed the result to his policy and interventionism and style. To describe the extent of the role he played in achieving the Korean breakthrough, he said “everything.” The audience cheered robustly and sustainedly.
Even those who don’t like Trump must concede that this is happening on his watch and that it is a breakthrough. Or we should say, it appears to be a breakthrough.
So did the initiative really start with the NK nuclear test failure? Was Trump shrewd, or just lucky? Does it matter? Trump will be the first US president to meet with a North Korean leader. Bill Clinton reportedly came close to a meeting but didn’t succeed. Trump’s favored TV channel ran a report on the three Kims and their nuclear ambitions. The title is “North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has grown with each Kim regime.” Here is the link: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/27/north-koreas-nuclear-weapons-program-has-grown-with-each-kim-regime.html.
During a private dinner I attended recently, conversation about NK morphed into talk about the reunification of Germany after decades of division. We looked at how a subsidy was transferred to the East Germans through the mechanism of maintaining the official East German Mark exchange rate when the conversion to the West German Deutschemark occurred. I personally recalled my experience of walking through Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin in an Army uniform. In those days, an American officer visiting East Berlin in civilian clothes risked arrest and imprisonment for spying. We went only in uniform. I remember vividly the machine gun slowly turning as I transited the border maze. A few others at the dinner offered metaphors of breakthroughs and how they occurred. Nixon-China and Reagan-Russia were cited as cases of success that avoided war and overcame the heightened risks of a T-Trap, with its asymmetric information. Historic T-Trap failures in history were also cited. Perhaps Chamberlain’s pacifist initiative with Hitler was the most dramatic.
Trump lovers and Trump haters aside, Kim’s about-face is happening on Trump’s watch. If peace breaks out on the Korean peninsula, Trump will be the sitting president of the United States who will be credited with success in that chapter of history. Now I have just invited an onslaught of rebuttal.
Passions about Trump run to the extreme. We saw that in Michigan from the Trump lovers.
Thucydides’ repeated warnings about emotions are confirmed in Americans’ behaviors today. Passions run high on both sides.
Here is a quote from an avowed Trump hater:
“He’s now jumping to take credit for whatever good happens in Korea. (He’ll blame others for anything that goes wrong, of course.) China reveals that Kim Jong Un blew up his nuke testing site and faces an existential cost threat to clean up his self-inflicted mess (the threat compares to making N Korea clean up the Hanford Washington breeder reactors). Then S Korea impeaches a leader for corruptly taking instructions from a chaebol (think, Trump taking orders from Putin). They then elect Moon on a platform to unify with the North; China rightly decides they have a better chance to succeed trading with Korea than conquering it (not to mention the chance Korea will either pick up the nuclear cleanup costs or get the US to help, saving China billions). AND TRUMP SAYS PEACE HAPPENED BECAUSE HE DID A GREAT NEGOTIATION JOB. The problem, of course, is that claiming credit is simple, but understanding reality is complex, so Trump may well succeed. In the end, it matters little in comparison to the world’s real problems, but that makes it no less maddening. THIS IS A GOON FOR WHOM ONLY 8% OF THOSE WHO KNEW HIM BEST (Manhattan residents) VOTED.”
Readers may wish to learn about Hanford, the site of a US nuclear site tunnel collapse in 2017, for reference. Its nuclear history starts in 1943 and continues until today. Here’s a background piece: https://www.energy.gov/em/hanford-site. And here’s a story on the collapse of the radioactive materials storage tunnel in May 2017: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/05/09/tunnel-collapses-at-hanford-nuclear-waste-site-in-washington-state-reports-say/?utm_term=.4bae7e6bd069.
We hope for a successful détente. Our view is that any action that reduces the risk of a T-Trap war is an action worth taking. We don’t think this is about Trump-hating or Trump-loving. We look beyond the warnings of Thucydides about emotions. It is the outcome we seek. If NK shuts down its nuclear program, the world is a better place. If the Korean peninsula thaws in its version of an East Germany–West Germany détente, the world is a better place. Will America be willing to fund some of the costs? That question is probably coming. Will the Congress have the vision to look beyond hating each other across the Republican-Democrat divide? Sadly, Thucydides’ history suggests only maybe and only temporarily.
Thucydides didn’t have nuclear weapons to write about. His Peloponnesian War experiences involved ships powered by wind or rowed by slaves, battering rams, the phalanx, the cavalry, archers, mercenaries, and hoplites (spear, shield and helmet-armed infantry). Battle was by sea or land. No satellite imagery. Information was sourced with spies and lookouts. Remember, this was 2500 years ago.
We did find Thucydides’ account of a plague that struck Ancient Greece, which may offer instructive parallels to the effects of a potential nuclear disaster in the Korean Peninsula. It happened in 431–430 B.C.E.
Until the time of Thucydides, plagues were attributed to the deities. We see that in the biblical narrative of the Ten Plagues in Egypt and we see it likewise in Homer (The Iliad) and Herodotus. That changed with Thucydides. Readers may recall that in part 1, we discussed how Thucydides focused on human behavior. He ignored the gods. He was looking at the methods and decisions of man.
We will end this part 2 with a portion of Thucydides’ description of the plague that hit Athens. That plague had spread around the Mediterranean from Egypt and Libya to Greece. It may have weakened Athens to the point where it lost the war with Sparta. We can speculate about that. Thucydides writes that “The plague had indeed begun immediately after the Peloponnesians (Spartans) had invaded, and it never reached the Peloponnese to any significant extent, but spread particularly in Athens....”
We ask that readers think of modern history as they read the following. Contemplate the outcome of a nuclear disaster, whether the massive deaths at Hiroshima or the suffering from Chernobyl. For an American image, research the effects of the 1918 flu epidemic in the United States 100 years ago. (See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/.) Use your imagination to move from ancient to modern.
Here is Thucydides:
“Other victims were in good health until, for no apparent cause, they were suddenly afflicted. The first symptoms were a high fever in the head and reddening and inflammation of the eyes; then internally foul smell. There followed sneezing and hoarseness of voice, and shortly the affliction moved down to the chest accompanied by a violent cough. When it settled in the stomach the turmoil caused there led to the voiding of bile in every form for which the doctors have a name, all this with great pain. Most then suffered from an empty retching which brought violent spasms... the surface of the body was not particularly hot to the touch or pallid, but reddish and livid, breaking out in small pustules and ulcers... the sensation of burning heat inside the body was so strong that sufferers could not bear the pressure of even the lightest clothing or sheets, or anything other than going naked, and their greatest wish was to plunge into cold water... many did throw themselves into cisterns, overcome by an insatiable thirst: but as a rule the quantity of water drunk made no difference...constant infliction was desperate restlessness and inability to sleep... the majority died from internal fever after six to eight days... others died from subsequent weakness when the disease spread down to the bowels causing heavy ulceration and the onset of completely liquid diarrhea... symptoms appeared when the disease took hold in their extremities. It attacked genitals, fingers, and toes, and many lived on with those parts lost; some too lost their sight. There were those who on recovery suffered immediate and total loss of memory, not knowing who they were and unable to recognize their friends... the pathology defied explanation... although many bodies lay unburied, the birds and animals which prey on human flesh kept away from them, or, if they did eat, died of it.”
Thucydides continues, “Such was the affliction which had come on the Athenians.... For all the time the Peloponnesians were in Athenian territory, the plague continued to take lives both among the expeditionary force and in the city of Athens, so much so that... the Peloponnesians cut short their presence in the country for fear of the disease....”
(For an extensive discussion of plagues in ancient times read “Plague in the Ancient World: A Study from Thucydides to Justinian,” by Christine Smith, available here: http://people.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1996-7/Smith.html.)
Has Kim created his own plague in North Korea? What are the true informational asymmetries at work among the key players – North Korea, South Korea, China, and the United States? Has the Thucydides Trap narrative changed in modern times? Are the dangers not greater now than they were in Thucydides’ time?
We will wrap up this part 2 with a special note. A very thoughtful reader sent the following:
“An interesting aside: ‘In his book titled The Oracle, science historian William Broad and his scientist team prove the existence of the crossed fault lines and the presence of an intoxicating gas called ethylene in the rocks below the ancient temple…. The presence of hydrocarbon gases can induce a narcotic state similar to that recorded from the trance state of Pythia.”
https://www.ancientpages.com/2016/11/03/mystery-delphi-oracle-prophecies-pythia-drugs-guiding-ancient-greek-civilization-thousands-years/
“If I’m not mistaken, you’re suggesting world peace could be obtained through sharing a ‘peace pipe,’ thus all the focus on medicinal cannabis.”
Part 3 is ahead.
Thucydides - series part 1: http://www.cumber.com/thucydides-part-1/.
Thucydides - series part 2: http://www.cumber.com/thucydides-part-2/.
Thucydides - series part 3: http://www.cumber.com/thucydides-part-3/.
Thucydides - series part 4: http://www.cumber.com/thucydides-part-4/
David Kotok
Chairman & Chief Investment Officer
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