How Did Athens Destabilize The Peloponnesian War?

After Persian wars, Athens and Sparta emerged as Greek strong societies growing their powers and living together peacefully with a truce in place. They had a treaty in place for 30 years. During peace time Athens became a naval power and Sparta developed military land power. Eventually, the Peloponnesian War (431- 404 BCE) broke out in ancient Greece between Athens and Sparta city-states. It was between Athens and their allies (the Delian League) and Spartan and their allies (the Peloponnesian League). Though the war was fought long ago with ancient methods, there are lessons to be learnt today from both sides, mainly on strategies applied, their interests, and other factors such as leadership and causes of the war. Both groups had interests that
These interests included economic interests, hegemony, as well as fear and honor on both city-states. Again, both had differences in terms of their way of life, leadership, and national power. Therefore, this paper identifies and analyzes how the Athens adapted a strategy that evolved according to realities and nature of the war as the war unfolded until the end, as well as risks destabilized the Athenian strategy during the Peloponnesian War. The paper highlights Athens objectives (ends) they had to achieve, how they wanted to achieve them (ways), and resources that were available to achieve the objectives (means).
Athens was more democratic, economically stable and with strong naval power unlike Sparta which was undemocratic (oligarchic), less economically stable and with strong land power but weak naval power. These factors contributed to Athens to adapt such strategy highlighted below during the Peloponnesian War. When the war erupted, because of Spartan fear for “the growth of