Into the Escalation Trap

Throughout history, men who have enjoyed uncontested wealth and power have fallen into the trap of overestimating their ability to control other people, and to obtain their desired outcomes through coercion. I think of Persia’s (Xerxes’s) invasion of Greece in 480 BC, Athen’s (under Alcibiades) expedition to conquer Sicily in 415 BC, the Roman attempted […]