# Revisiting Thucydides: How Small States Survive in a World of Great Powers ![Poster for the Workshop "Revisiting Thucydides."](/sites/g/files/omnuum7151/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/2026-02/5%20-%20Workshops%2025-26%20PAPAGEORGIOU.png?itok=rSbVFvpj) ## About the workshop Key information Thematic areas – structure Goals Accessibility ## Key information - **Full title:** Revisiting Thucydides: How Small States Survive in a World of Great Powers - **Dates:** May 16-17, 2026, 11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. - **Location:** CHS Greece, Nafplio - **Organized by:** CHS Greece - **Open to:** All (limited number of places) - **Application period:** February 24-March 29, 2026 - **Academic coordination:** [Dr. Agis Papageorgiou](https://www.lse.ac.uk/people/agis-papageorgiou) (Guest Teacher, Department of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science) - **Activity administration:** Matina Goga (CHS Greece) - **Contact number and email:** (+30) 27520 47030, int. line 1, ### Overview Harvard University's Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece organizes the workshop "Revisiting Thucydides: How Small States Survive in a World of Great Powers." CHS Greece, through its annual workshop series, aims to support Hellenic Studies and the broader field of Humanities, and to offer intergenerational, interdisciplinary, lifelong learning opportunities to the public. This workshop revisits Thucydides as a strategic analyst of power politics and uses his work to examine how small states preserve autonomy, security, and political stability great power competition settings. The workshop treats asymmetry as a recurring feature of international order and focuses on how coercion, credibility, misperception, and escalation dynamics shape the decision space of middle and small powers alike. Participants will engage directly with selected Thucydidean episodes to identify enduring patterns in bargaining under duress, alliance behavior, and the limits of moral and legal argument when vital interests are at stake. The workshop then translates structural constraint into a practical policy framework for small-state strategy. It maps certain fundamental survival postures available to small states – balancing, bandwagoning, neutrality, institutional entrenchment, economic leverage, and hedging – and evaluates the conditions under which each posture can be credible and sustainable. The workshop emphasizes on the interaction between external pressures and internal vulnerabilities, including polarization, elite fragmentation, and domestic political and economic interests, all of which Thucydides treats as strategic variables rather than background noise. A dedicated case-study module applies these concepts to modern and contemporary examples across regions and systemic contexts. Core cases include among others Finland, South Korea, Singapore, Ukraine, and Cold War Greece, with additional comparative cases introduced to broaden variation and respond to participant interest. Each case is assessed through a consistent analytic lens: structural constraint, strategic choice, autonomy retained, and residual vulnerability. The workshop stress-tests strategies against shocks such as invasion risk, economic coercion, alliance ambiguity, and rapid shifts in the balance of power. The workshop culminates in an applied policy lab in which participants design, propose, and defend a small-state survival strategy in a simulated multipolar crisis environment. Working in groups, participants will produce short, executive-style outputs including a time-phased response plan and a concise strategic doctrine statement, explicitly weighing deontological constraints against consequentialist imperatives. By the end, participants will be able to move from classical text to modern application: diagnosing constraint, selecting posture, anticipating second-order effects, and communicating strategy in clear policymaking terms. #### Short biographical note of the academic coordinator Dr. Agis Papageorgiou specializes in the history, politics, and ethical dimensions of superpower competition, with a focus on great power interventionism and the role of teleological narratives in foreign policy. At LSE, he has taught American Foreign Policy, Historical Approaches to the Modern World, and the Cold War on the undergraduate level, as well as Crisis and Decision-Making in War and Peace on the postgraduate level. ## Thematic areas – structure The approach to the topic will be organized around the following thematic axes: ### Pedagogical approach - Textual analysis (Thucydides as strategic manual) - Historical comparison - Applied geopolitical case studies - Structured discussion and policy simulation ### Day 1 #### Module I ##### Core Theme: Power Asymmetry as Structural Condition This module explores the proposition that power asymmetry constitutes a recurring structural condition of international politics rather than a temporary imbalance. Drawing on Thucydides, it examines how small states navigate enduring hierarchies of power shaped by fear, interest, and security dilemmas, and considers the extent to which moral and legal agency remains possible under such constraints. **Focus:** - Structural inevitability of unequal power - Survival under coercive pressure - The limits of justice in anarchic systems - Strategic agency within great power constraints **Group exercise:** Strategic reconstruction of the Melian decision space, assessing the range of viable choices available to a small state under coercive pressure. #### Module II ##### Core Theme: Strategic Adaptation: The Survival Toolkit of Small States This module advances the argument that structural constraint does not eliminate agency but channels it into strategic choice. It analyzes how small states operate within defined limits, assessing the degree to which survival depends on calibrated adaptation, strategic flexibility, and prioritization of security over ideological consistency. **Focus:** - Balancing vs bandwagoning - Neutrality vs alignment - Economic interdependence as shield - Hedging as long-term posture **Group exercise:** Design of a long-term survival strategy for a fictional small state operating between rival great powers under conditions of alliance uncertainty. ### Day 2 #### Module III ##### Core Theme: Applied Survival: Historical and Contemporary Case Patterns This module examines the relationship between theory and practice in the survival of small states. It evaluates the claim that endurance is achieved through strategic variation rather than adherence to fixed doctrine and analyzes how historical cases reflect adaptation to shifting systemic conditions. **Focus:** - Finlandization as managed autonomy - Singapore as strategic economic leverage - South Korea and survival through alliance dependence, and economic integration - Ukraine as adaptive resistance under persistent threat - Greece as alliance-dependent stabilization - Comparative stress test of historical and contemporary case studies, evaluating structural constraints, strategic choices, and long-term sustainability. **Group exercise:** Comparative stress test of historical and contemporary case studies, evaluating structural constraints, strategic choices, and long-term sustainability. #### Module IV ##### Core Theme: Designing Small-State Grand Strategy in a Multipolar System This module moves from analytical assessment to strategic design. It considers the implications of an international system increasingly characterized by competitive multipolarity and evaluates how small states can formulate coherent survival strategies amid alliance uncertainty, economic coercion, and shifting power balances. **Focus:** - Great-power rivalry (US–China) - Revisionist actors - Institutional fragility - Domestic cohesion as strategic asset - Time horizons: short-term survival vs long-term autonomy **Group exercise:** Crisis-cabinet simulation culminating in the drafting of a concise small-state grand strategy for a multipolar and coercive international environment. ## Goals Participants in the workshop are expected to: - Extract strategic principles from Thucydides relevant to asymmetry in power. - Identify structural constraints facing small states in multipolar and bipolar systems. - Distinguish between moral and legal survival strategy. - Evaluate survival strategies: balancing, bandwagoning, neutrality, hedging, institutional leverage. - Apply classical insights to contemporary geopolitical cases. - Assess how deontological and consequentialist ethics influence small-state strategic decision-making under power asymmetry. - Formulate policy recommendations for small states operating under great-power pressure. ## Accessibility The Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its workshops and activities. If you would like to request accommodations or have questions about the physical access provided, please email or call [(+30) 27520 47030]() and then press "1," in advance of your participation. Requests for accommodations should be made as far in advance as possible. We will explore each request on a case-by-case basis. However, please note that all services are subject to availability. See also:- [ Workshop Series ](/activities-type/workshops) - [ International Affairs ](/activities-field/international-affairs) - [ Classics ](/activities-field/classics) - [ Political Theory ](/activities-field/political-theory) - [ Open to all ](/target-audience/open-to-all)