In the final week of Political Studies, fellows will return to the question of statesmanship, what elevates it above ordinary political leadership, and separates it from tyranny.

The first section will focus on Thucydides’ masterpiece, The Peloponnesian War, and examine a series of strategic challenges and responses to them. The second section will consider the nature of ideological tyranny through the writings of thinkers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Hannah Arendt, and Václav Havel.

Image: Ivy Close Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Flagg Taylor on the Gulag

This course is part of our residential Political Studies Program. Fellows participate in morning seminars and meet prominent men and women in public life over afternoon and evening sessions. Up to 32 fellows will be selected.

Faculty

Flagg Taylor

Flagg Taylor is the Executive Director of the Center for Civics, Culture, & Society, at Miami University. His research specialty is in the history of political thought and American government, especially the question of executive power. He is Chair of the Academic Council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Jakub J. Grygiel

Jakub Grygiel is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of America. From 2017–18, he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State. His most recent book is Return of the Barbarians: Confronting Non-State Actors from Ancient Rome to the Present.

Jakub J. Grygiel

Jakub Grygiel is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of America. From 2017–2018, he was a senior advisor to the Secretary of State in the Office of Policy Planning working on European affairs.

Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and on the faculty of SAIS-Johns Hopkins University. He has previously worked as a consultant for the OECD in Paris and the World Bank in Washington.

His most recent book is Return of the Barbarians: Confronting Non-State Actors from Ancient Rome to the Present. He is coauthor of The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power (with A. Wess Mitchell) and also the author of Great Powers and Geopolitical Change. His writings on international relations and security studies have appeared in The American Interest, Journal of Strategic Studies, Orbis, Commentary, Joint Forces Quarterly, Political Science Quarterly, as well as U.S., Swiss, Polish and Italian newspapers. He earned a Ph.D., M.A. and an MPA from Princeton University, and a BSFS Summa Cum Laude from Georgetown University.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

Readings:

  • Aeschylus, The Persians
  • Thucydides, Book 1 – 1.29 (pp. 3–20)

Discussion Questions:

  1. Geopolitical rivalries begin and continue with an assessment of the enemy: how to know the rival? What are the consequences of a poor assessment?

 

Readings:

  • Thucydides, Book 30 – 1.146 (pp. 20–85)

Discussion Questions:

  1. Great powers fear “entrapment” (being dragged into small and peripheral wars by their allies) while their allies fear “abandonment” (being left alone by their distant security patron). How can these fears be mitigated? Do they reflect the reality of international politics?
  2. What is the importance of allies for the U.S.?

Readings:

  • Thucydides, Book 1 – 2.103 (pp. 89–156)

Discussion Questions:

  1. The Peloponnesian War was a conflict between a sea power (Athens) and a land power (Sparta). What are the features of such a conflict? What are the differences in how they conduct war?
  2. How did the strategy of Archidamus differ from that of Pericles?
  3. What strategy should the S. pursue against its continental rivals (China, Iran, Russia)?

Readings:

  • Thucydides, Book 1 – 3.86 (pp. 159–202)
  • Thucydides, Book 84 – 5.116 (pp. 350–57)

Discussion Questions:

  1. States are Factions are powerful while social cohesion can collapse unexpectedly. What are the sources of weakness and strength?
  2. How does internal cohesion (or lack thereof) affect foreign policy?
  3. What is the appeal of demagogues?

Readings:

  • Thucydides, Book 6:
    • 6.1; 6.6 – 6.26 (pp. 361; 365–76)
    • 6.46 – 6.53 (pp. 387–90)
    • 6.75 – 6.88 (pp. 403–12)
    • 6.89 – 6.93 (pp. 412–16)
  • Thucydides, Book 7:
    • 7.3 – 7.30 (pp. 429–45)
    • 7.42 – 7.87 (pp. 451–78)

Discussion Questions:

  1. Pericles warned against ambitious power The Athenians went to Sicily and failed miserably. Are distant expeditions doomed? Was it a strategic blunder – or a strategically bold move but executed poorly?
  2. What are the symptoms of a collapsing army or society?

Readings:

  • Xenophon, Hiero or the Skilled Tyrant
  • Carl Friedrich, “The Unique Character of a Totalitarian Society” (from The Great Lie)

Discussion Questions:

  1. What does Xenophon’s portrait of Hiero suggest about the longings of a tyrant?
  2. What does the dialogue suggest about the possibility of a reformed or stabilized tyrannical rule?
  3. According to Friedrich, what are the distinguishing characteristics of a totalitarian regime?

Readings:

  • Hannah Arendt, “Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government” (from The Great Lie)
  • Alain Besançon, “On the Difficulty of Defining the Soviet Regime” (from The Great Lie)

Discussion Questions:

  1. What is the character of “totalitarian lawfulness” according to Arendt?
  2. Why, according to Besançon, does the Soviet regime escape the regime classification schemes of Aristotle and Montesquieu?
  3. What is the unique role that ideology plays in a totalitarian regime according to both Besançon and Arendt?

Readings:

  • Arthur Koestler, The God That Failed
  • Czeslaw Milosz, “The Pill of Murti-Bing” (from The Great Lie) and “Child of Europe” (a poem)

Discussion Questions:

  1. How does Koestler account for his own conversion to Communism? How does Koestler’s account compare to Milosz’s portrait of intellectuals’ attraction to Communism?
  2. What accounts for Koestler’s disenchantment with the Communist Party and his eventual departure from it?
  3. In the poem “Child of Europe,” the “we” of Section 1 ends up dispensing a certain kind of wisdom to the “child of Europe” in Sections 2–8. What is the character of that wisdom?

Readings:

  • Václav Benda, “The Parallel Polis” (from The Great Lie)
  • Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless” (from The Great Lie)
  • Václav Havel, Audience and Protest (2 one-act plays)

Discussion Questions:

  1. What is the “parallel polis,” and what is it meant to accomplish?
  2. What is the role of ideology in a post-totalitarian regime?
  3. Explain Havel’s green-grocer and the significance of this image.
  4. Who is Ferdinand Vaněk, and what effect does he have on his interlocutors in these two plays?

Readings:

  • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “We Have Ceased to See the Purpose” (from The Great Lie)
  • Pierre Manent, “The Return of Political Philosophy” (from The Great Lie)
  • Chantal Delsol, “Traces of a Wounded Animal” (from The Great Lie)

Discussion Questions:

  1. Explain Solzhenitsyn’s critique of a certain idea of progress.
  2. According to Pierre Manent, what is the relationship between totalitarianism and modern science on the one hand and modern democracy on the other?
  3. What is the broader meaning of the struggle of central European dissidents according to Chantal Delsol?

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Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr.

Gen. Kenneth ‘Frank’ McKenzie Jr. is the former Commander of United States Central Command. He led a distinguished 42-year military career, commanding at multiple levels within the Marine Corps and serving on the Joint Staff. His leadership roles included commanding the First Battalion, Sixth Marines, and the 22nd MEU (SOC) during combat deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.