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Wise to Bow before Powers? Strategic Surrender Wins!
Does bowing before powers work for small countries? Or can standing tall work? The history guides us. Here is the story: living with compromises or dying without winning determines whether we are successful. Survival matters most to me, as we can get a chance to come back and hit hard.
The story is from thousands of years ago, when there were two city-states: Athens and Sparta. There was almost a state of war between these two states. Athens was a powerful and prosperous state, and the Spartans believed that this power would be used against them.
Between Athens and Sparta, there was a small island called Melos. The people of Melos were decent and did not want to get involved in any conflict, especially not in a war between those two troublemakers; they wished to remain completely neutral. But sometimes, no matter how much you want to, you cannot stay neutral.
In this matter, Athens’s position was that only animals are neutral. In Athens’s view, Melos’s neutrality was a threat, because if a small island did not bow before them, not only would they face defeat against Sparta, but other regions of their empire might also dare to rebel.
Therefore, when the envoys of Athens reached Melos, they did not mince words and said exactly what George Bush said to poor nations like us after…
