The Weak Suffer as They Must?

 Yaroslav Trofimov writes today in the Wall Street Journal about how the "weaker" countries around the globe seem to be putting up a surprisingly good defense to the aggression of great powers.

Back at the start of the second Trump term, Trofimov notes, the phrase on everyone's lips was the one from Thucydides: "The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer as they must." We thought we were back in the era of naked conquest, imperialism, and social Darwinism. As Stephen Miller notoriously put it in an interview: "We live in a world, in the real world [...] that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power."

And so, Russia invaded Ukraine, and the United States invaded Iran—international law and the principle of non-aggression be damned. 

But then, an odd thing happened. Instead of recognizing their natural status as the weaker powers; instead of just rolling over and "suffering what they must"—both countries fought back with surprisingly cheap drones. And so, in their different ways—and despite massive and morally significant differences between the two governments (one democratic and one brutally authoritarian)—both Ukraine and Iran managed to fight the supposed "strong" nations into a stalemate. 

As a result, Trofimov writes, "now it seems that the weak aren’t as weak as many had believed. The strong can’t really do what they want, either."

I am reminded again of Anatole France's observation about the Russo-Japanese war (Roche trans.): "brute force, up to now the sole judge of human actions, indulges occasionally in unexpected pranks."

Here, after all, was another war between a "great power"—a conquering, bullying European nation with a modern military and all the latest gadgets. And yet, it was defeated by a humbler power playing defense. "Tis in vain that serious individuals like Monsieur Edmond Théry demonstrated to [Japan] that they were bound to be beaten, in the superior interest of the European market and in conformity with the most firmly established economic laws," France wrote, with sardonic wit. 

This, at last, is the problem of declaring "strength, force, and power" to be the only laws of international politics—rather than mercy, justice, or humanity. If you say that we are in a social Darwinist world now, where the weak will suffer what they must—you have to be prepared to suffer whatever comes along if you should happen to discover that you are not in fact as strong as you thought. 

If the "weak aren't as weak as many believed," and "the strong can't really do what they want," you—by your own amoral logic—have to accept the consequences. It's too late to cry for justice then. As Anatole France put it: "Of what use are our lamentations? That might is right is our god. If Tokio is the weaker, it shall be in the wrong and it shall be made to feel it; if it is the stronger, right will be on its side, and we shall have no reproach to cast at it."

Putin and Trump likewise made "might is right" their god. That is what Stephen Miller was saying, in so many words, with all his tough guy talk about "strength, force, and power." 

Now, they are having to learn the hard lesson that "brute force" can play "unexpected pranks," as France put it. They are having to discover that they may not have been as strong, and their victims as helpless, as they thought. Now, they are having to suffer what they must—from Ukraine and Iran's cheap drones and battlefield successes. Oh "strange irony of fate," as Borowski once put it.