Thucydides and the Final Frontier: The Enduring Relevance of the History of the Peloponnesian War

The protagonists in most Star Trek episodes and movies ordinarily behave in ways that accord with the franchise's liberal international ethos. On occasion, however, the protagonists behave in a way that instead aligns more with rudimentary realist principles that international relations theorists trace back to the History of the Peloponnesian War. This paper examines three such instances: "The Enterprise Incident" from Star Trek: The Original Series, "Justice" from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and "Damage" from Star Trek: Enterprise. As this paper argues, it may well be that these exceptions reflect a general understanding that even in an ideal future some of the harsher realities of the human condition are inescapable, realities that Thucydides conceptually alluded to over two millennia ago. This paper concludes by suggesting that it is worth taking up Thucydides on his call to use his work to better understand our own time, obviously not by trying to draw direct lessons from the Peloponnesian War, but by evaluating how far humanity has developed behaviorally since then and by contemplating how much further human behavior needs to progress in the years ahead to reach the lofty ideals projected in works of science fiction like Star Trek—and by questioning whether such aspirations are even realistic.