Power Of Athens, And The Peloponnesian War

“The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in [Sparta], made war inevitable,” (Thucydides). While trade is often associated with facilitating war, there exists an obvious link between the growth of power thereof and war. As can be seen in the Peloponnesian War, a nation becoming a master of trade creates hostility with nations which want to have that power. Also, powerful nations become potential military threats, resulting in a dilemma of national security, similar to the decline of the Muslim Golden age. Finally, trade is also associated with war because hard-to-obtain traded goods become valuable and nations battle for that commodity. Historically, trade is conveyed to be a factor leading to war, though the struggle
Athens was able to master trade through sea and land, and with that advantage, was able to build its wealth and power in the region. When Athens became a powerhouse, Corinth, Sparta, and Thebes felt threatened by its size and power; Thebes specifically felt Athens was a military threat (Lecture 3.1). After repeated attacks from Persia, Athens created the Delian League and the scale of its empire, expansion, military, and wealth was alarming. In other words, Athens created an alliance between various city-states in order to protect itself from the many incoming attacks, but it grew so quickly and so successfully that the opposing nations became relatively vulnerable. Many of the opposing nations only had disputes with Athens over trade, but the scale of the Delian League encouraged them to create their own alliance and amplify the tension, resulting in the Peloponnesian War. By the end of the war, the city-states in both the Athens-led Delian League and the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League lost citizens, money, and healthy land. Evidently, due to the power struggle and security threat created by Athens’ domination of trade, some of the largest, ancient city-states were set back to square
Britain freely exploited Iran’s oil through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company until Iran tried and failed to negotiate a fifty-fifty profit share after seeing Saudi Arabia successfully do so with the United States (Kinzer). After publicly shaming Britain for exploiting Iran, Prime Minister Mossadegh attempted to nationalize the oil company; in turn, the United States and Britain staged a coup against him. In accordance with overthrowing Prime Minister Mossadegh, the United States facilitated the advancement of the Shah to power and helped establish the Shah’s brutally inhumane police force. When Iran finally backlashed against the Shah and the United States, the U.S. aided Iraq in fighting against Iran (Lecture 6.1). The U.S. funded Iraq, who was also fearful of Iran’s power, in the Iran-Iraq war to combat Iran’s nationalist efforts and prevent losing control of the oil industry. As it is well known, this series of events has led to the ever-present war between the U.S. and various Middle Eastern countries. Not only did the U.S. interference in Iran lead to the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, but ultimately to Al-Qaeda and ISIS (Kinzer). Fundamentally, the U.S. and Iraq were fearful of Iran’s potential and various wars, national tragedies, and breaches of human rights have transpired