Athens, America and the Ukraine War

null Nov. 24, 2023 12:19 pm ETAn illustration of the Athenians before Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War Photo: Getty ImagesPaul Rahe is wrong on almost every point in the comparison he draws between Athens’s invasion of Syracuse and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Weekend Interview by Tunku Varadrajan, Nov. 18).The best comparison to the Athenians attacking Syracuse, a city-state 800 nautical miles away at what the Greeks then perceived to be the edge of the civilized world, isn’t the Russians attacking their immediate neighbor, Ukraine, but the U.S. trying to expand its own military alliance, NATO, into distant Eurasia. While it is certainly true that the Athenian invasion of Sicily is a classic example of “greedy overreach,” if there is any country today that is overextended, it isn’t Russia, but the U.S.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8Continue reading your article witha WSJ subscriptionSubscribe NowAlready a subscribe