Talking Strategy1 Jul 2025

S5E19: Thucydides: A Revolution in Strategic Thinking

Thucydides set the 'gold standard' for a strategic analysis of war with his history of the Peloponnesian War: Dr Roel Konijnendijk explains how.

Thucydides, who lived almost two-and-a-half millennia ago, revolutionised strategic analysis by asserting the place of human agency rather than attributing events as being shaped by Gods or fate. This is something that Machiavelli repeats centuries later in The Prince. Thucydides claimed to have identified patterns of strategic behaviour that he thought would be enacted 'as long as human nature is the same'. A fascinating question, however, is whether strategists have behaved according to these patterns because they have been inspired to do so by reading Thucydides, or did he truly discover patterns of behaviour that endure throughout time and space? Are modern scholars projecting their own strategic world views into Ancient Greece or has our Ancient Greek heritage determined how we see the world? Finally, did Thucydides think that a world in which 'the strong do what they will and the weak have to put up with it' is the only possible one?

Dr Roel Konijnendijk is the Derby Fellow of Ancient History at Lincoln College, Oxford. After his PhD from University College London, he held several prestigious research fellowships and taught ancient history at UCL, Birkbeck, Warwick, Oxford, and Edinburgh. He is the author of Classical Greek Tactics: A Cultural History (2018) and Between Miltiades and Moltke: Early German Studies in Greek Military History (2022) as well as co-editor of Brill's Companion to Greek Land Warfare Beyond the Phalanx (2021).

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(101)

S6E22: Delivering National Security Strategies

Former UN Ambassador and National Security Advisor Sir Mark Lyall Grant discusses the challenges facing delivery of Western security strategies. In this season of Talking Strategy we have explored man...

14 Jul 38min

S6E21: Dr Jack Watling on Ukrainian Adaptation to War

In our 100th episode, we talk to RUSI senior research fellow Dr Jack Watling about the transformation in Ukraine in response to Russia's War. Against what many considered a materially superior adversa...

30 Jun 33min

S6E20: Preparing for War: Adaptable Forces and Societies

Professor Olivier Schmitt describes the systemic challenges of military transformation, given rapidly evolving technology and NATO's distinct strategic cultures. Modern defence and security reviews hi...

16 Jun 36min

S6E19: Adversarial Strategy: Russia's Preparations for a Long War

We look at how Russia's armed forces are learning lessons from combat and examine Moscow's ambitions in its war against Ukraine. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine is part of a long-term, much larger ...

2 Jun 32min

S6E18: Bullion to Bullets: Mobilising the Financial Markets

The Centre for Economic Security's Dr Rebecca Harding argues for the importance of financial markets as the fourth pillar in supporting effective mobilisation. Conversations about industrial mobilisat...

19 Mai 35min

S6E17: Industrial Mobilisation: Harnessing the Capacity of Defence Primes Andrea Thompson

Despite an increasing focus on SMEs, effective industrial mobilisation must also better harness the power of traditional defence firms. Andrea Thompson from BAE Systems explains how. The excitement in...

5 Mai 36min

S6E16: Harnessing Disruptors in the Defence Industrial Ecosystem: Anduril Industries

The preparedness of Western armed forces for conflict is something that has featured prominently in many defence reviews. Christian Brose, Anduril's President & Chief Strategy Officer, describes how g...

21 Apr 41min

S6E15: Integrating Today's Forces for Air and Missile Defence

Rear Admiral Archer M Macy Jr describes today's military, organisational, human and cultural risks and opportunities in integrating forces for air and missile defence. Many modern defence reviews focu...

8 Apr 33min