Tom Waldman

What Thucydides Could Really Teach Trump “Athens did not fall because it lacked power; power changed Athens” #realism #geopolitics #Thucydides #War #restraint #Pericles #power #strategy #alliances #Trump #narrative #nato #hubris #melos tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

"Trump's Wars: How an Anti-War President Learned to Love the Use of Force” "linkedin.com/pulse/trumps-w…

What Thucydides Could Really Teach Trump “Athens did not fall because it lacked power; power changed Athens” #realism #geopolitics #Thucydides #War #restraint #Pericles #power #strategy #alliances #Trump #narrative #nato #hubris #melos tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

@GenFlynn @lacy_mark It’s really not. An AI-written butchering of Clausewitz…

Brilliant analysis by a scholar of war. This is what many are missing in the debate over the war in Iran. This should also be read by every American. It should be mandatory reading by every General and Admiral and every elected and appointed official in the USG, as well as everyone in the media. In this essay, War Scholar @SpencerGuard argues that Carl Von Clausewitz, himself a master On War, remains the master of masters. He did not give us answers. He gave us a method. He argues, war remains a contest of wills. What has changed is how directly modern capabilities can strike the sources of that will. Those who believe an enemy can be defeated without cost misunderstand the nature of war. If the political objective is worth fighting for, the enemy will resist. The greatest danger, as Clausewitz warned, is misjudging success, pressing beyond its limits or declaring it too soon. Clausewitz’s warning is clear: success can produce failure. For a more complete understanding of what is at stake, please take time to listen or read (takes only a few minutes). God Bless America 🙏🏼🇺🇸

@GonzoTimD @tkmeyer2020 Quite the opposite. It’s terrible, AI-produced clap-trap.

Absolutely required reading.

And I would like to apologise to that sheep for unfairly comparing it to Trump. It didn’t know better.

Bit random but when I contemplate Trump in this war the image that comes to mind is a dumb sheep that had got its head stuck in a fence; if you tried to get near to help it, it would buck wildly while desperately thrusting its head harder into the hole, getting further entangled

This is a superb illustration of what in my book on Clausewitz I called the political ‘web of war’ (amzn.eu/d/0aVqohHa) War’s Gravity nytimes.com/interactive/20… via @NYTimes

Ugly AI slop. Seriously concerning seeing analysts lazily invoking and debasing #Clausewitz in support of such tendentious positions. The Prussian was a serious scholar who wouldn’t cut corners trying to score partisan social media points in this manner.

Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War is a cautionary tale about the paradoxes of power, and the way the seductions of superiority invite painful reckonings. What Thucydides Could Really Teach Trump: Survival: Vol 68 , No. 1 tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

When a book you published in 2021 is strangely more relevant in 2026 🙃… Vicarious Warfare: American Strategy and the Illusion of War on the Cheap amazon.com/Vicarious-Warf… #IranWar

Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War is a cautionary tale about the paradoxes of power, and the way the seductions of superiority invite painful reckonings. @tom_waldman assesses what Thucydides could really teach Trump: ➡️ go.iiss.org/402G4kt

@WhiteHouse Truly sick.

Touchdown

"Strategic Theory and Clausewitz’s Trinitarian Test" - great read by Lukas Milevski #clausewitz #strategy #war press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol…

@IISS_org And my latest piece examining “Trump’s Wars”available on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/posts/towaldma…

Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War is a cautionary tale about the paradoxes of power, and the way the seductions of superiority invite painful reckonings. @tom_waldman assesses what Thucydides could really teach Trump: ➡️ go.iiss.org/402G4kt

“One year into his second term, Mr. Trump seems to have shed his earlier skepticism and turned repeatedly to the U.S. military as a low-cost, high-payoff means of solving problems that have bedeviled American presidents for decades.” #vicariouswarfare nytimes.com/2026/03/02/us/…

You can always trust Kroenig to find oases of rationality in the deserts of Trumpian foreign policy foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/01/tru…

The wisdom he’s looking for is ’if you want peace, PREPARE war’, not WAGE war…especially if without a plan, without democratic support, without legal sanction

From NYT: ‘Trump said on social media that U.S. strikes would continue “throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”’ Yeah, just like you’d use gasoline to put out a fire.