Neemrana by CSEP, and that other Thucydides

by
Danny Quah
Mar 2023

I didn't really have a speaking role at this amazing conference in Neemrana organized by the Centre for Social and Economic Progress.

But I did get to say at the end how glad I was all of us had gathered, even if over the course of the conference I disagreed profoundly with the nationalism I heard and with the charge made by International Security scholars that economists had too rosy a view of human nature and were insufficiently dismal in their outlook. I was glad, because I reckon we need to escape that other Thucydides Trap, where any group of nations that sharply separates its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.

(I know Thucydides didn't actually say that last bit, even if many think he did. I just like the alliteration.)