[Dargo]

In the summer of 416 BC, Athens decided to annex the puny island of Melos, which had never done anything wrong to the Athenians and had until then been neutral in the conflict between Athens and Sparta. Athens had respected their neutrality until then, but considered the time had come when Athenian tolerance with regard to Melos could be seen as a sign of weakness. The Athenians sent an impressive military force to Melos, after which they opened negotiations for a peace agreement, which as far as they were concerned amounted to the immediate unconditional surrender of the Melians. The Melians said such an agreement would be unjust. ‘Justice and injustice are irrelevant concepts in this context,’ the Athenians replied. ‘Justice may apply among equals. In the present situation, a different truth applies, and that is that those who are strong do what they want, while those who are weak endure what they must endure. It is necessary for the preservation of our empire that our strength is feared in the islands and that in the islands, where people have good reasons to oppose us, there is no talk of the fate of one island that might justify hopes of independence.’

‘If there are apparently so many good reasons in the other islands to oppose your empire, it would show unacceptable cowardice if we were not prepared to do everything possible to prevent us from being incorporated into your empire,’ the Melians said. ‘It would be foolishness if you were not prepared to see that there is no way to prevent it,’ the Athenians said. ‘The dilemma facing you is not the choice between cowardice or bravery, but the choice between self-preservation and total destruction.’ When the Melians said they trusted the gods, the Athenians replied, ‘The right of the strongest is a natural law that even the gods obey. We did not invent this law. It existed long before we appeared on the scene, and it will still exist long after we are gone. We have found this law in divine and human nature and are making temporary use of it, that is all.’ The Melians refused to come to an agreement. After a brief siege, their state was destroyed by the Athenians in January of the year 415 BC. All the male inhabitants of the island were put to death, and the women and children were sold as slaves.

The main difference between these negotiations of Athens with Melos, as minuted by Thucydides, and the disconcerting meeting of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine with President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance of the United States on Friday 28 February 2025 in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington was stylistic. Trump and Vance could not match the eloquence of the Athens negotiators. In their efforts to humiliate Zelenskyy in front of the television cameras, they barely let him speak, while at least the Athenians still exercised the decency to let the Melians speak during their intimidation. All other differences between the two situations, separated by almost two and a half millennia in time, pale in comparison to the corresponding principle underlying both. Unlike Athens, America is not the aggressor, agreed, but the surrender that America demands of Ukraine is motivated by American greed regarding Ukrainian mineral resources worthy of an aggressor. The main and most shocking agreement is that the principle of justice is declared irrelevant. ‘We should not confuse the victim and the aggressor in this terrible war,’ the incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz rightly said. In Trump's world, which is the new American reality, only the law of the jungle applies. ‘You don't have the cards,’ Trump said. Those who are strong do what they want, while those who are weak endure what they have to endure.

The reason Trump hates Europe is that he fears it. All the individual countries of Europe each pose no threat to America, but in his awe of the law of the jungle, he sees a united Europe as a formidable adversary. That is why he consistently refuses to speak to Union representatives. He hopes to pit the individual countries of Europe against each other with bilateral agreements. We could also phrase the challenge we face in these terms: let it then be our mission to become who he fears us to be. It is a matter of self-confidence and unity, and unfortunately these are not Europe's greatest talents. But we have no choice Project 2025 in action, but we will survive.