THE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF WAR — THUCYDIDES (GREAT STRATEGISTS)

A BETTER PEACE presents "The Nature and Character of War -- Thucydides," the next installment in our Great Strategists series. Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) was a Athenian general in the Peloponnesian War who, early on, recognized the War's potential for transforming the political and social structures of the period. Thus, he set out to write a detailed account of the War from its onset. His aim was to understand how wars began, its impacts on combatant forces and societies, and to raise questions about the meaning of 'just' war. Tami Davis Biddle, Michael Neiberg, Richard Lacquement, and Jacqueline E. Whitt discuss the man and his works -- both how it should be used and how it is too often misused.