I read Thucydides on Strategy with considerable interest, pleasure, and care. Many students of strategy and international relations grow their knowledge from one or two theoretical concepts implicit in Thucydides's work. The authors have managed to synthesize most of these theories into a coherent whole that explains how Athens lost and the Peloponnesians won. They also show how the same sorts of strategic questions and problems are likely to recur again and again, as Thucydides says, so long as human nature remains the same. In other words, as long as we define political objectives, match a grand strategy to meet them, integrate a military strategy with the grand strategy, interact with an enemy, avoid overextension, and a whole range of themes commonly studied by strategists today. A model of scholarly writing at its best, and a gem of a book. -- Karl Walling, United States Naval War College Thucydides on Strategy provides a conclusive rebuttal to those who suspect modern strategists are guilty of anachronism when they claim that the classical world thought and acted strategically. Athanassioss G. Platias and Constantinos Koliopoulos demonstrate convincingly why Thucydides belongs in a lonely triumvirate with Carl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu as the truly essential authors of a general strategic theory both universally and eternally valid. The wisdom in this splendid book could save our current politics from many follies. If only our politicians, civil servants, and soldiers took the time to read and understand it. -- Colin S. Gray, University of Reading
Athanassioss G. Platias is professor of strategy in the Department of International and European Studies at the University of Pireaus. Constantinos Koliopoulos is lecturer in international politics at the Panteion University of Political and Social Sciences, Athens.
an excellent companion to the History, and an aid to the essential reflection that Thucydides's work requires. -- Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely(Retd) Rusi Journal vol 155, no 5
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