Thinking with Thucydides on Climate Change Geopolitics

The Melian Dialogue, Low-Lying Island States, and the Anthropocene as “the Greatest Motion”

Abstract

This article uses Thucydides to frame the Anthropocene as “the greatest motion” in order to consider the magnitude and urgency of climate change for thinking about geopolitics today. His Melian Dialogue, the debate between the Athenians and the Melians over the neutrality of the island of Melos, is revisited with a mind to consider the plight of low-lying island states in a time of climate change and the unwillingness of great powers, like China and the United States, to act in accordance with the climate justice standard of keeping temperatures from rising 1.5°C above the preindustrial average. With climate justice appeals failing to convince great powers in their actions, this article raises the prospect of how interest-based reasoning could align itself with appeals to justice, with the intent of overcoming indifference toward the plight of the inhabitants of low-lying island states. The key is to move great powers in the direction of taking an active interest in upholding their climate pledges so that they do not ring hollow. Recalling Thucydides’ placement of the Melian Dialogue before the disastrous Athenian-led Sicilian expedition could serve as a cautionary tale for great powers in the context of climate change geopolitics.