Melos and Ukraine Apr 6 2025

Melos is a small island in the Aegean Sea, about 61 square miles in size (so a tiny bit bigger than San Clemente Island, or 6 square miles bigger than Hilton Head island). It is famous for one thing: getting destroyed. In 416 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians came to Melos and made them an offer, join the Athenian alliance (the Delian League) or be wiped out. This led to the famous Melian dialogue, in which Melians argued that this is wrong, and the Athenians responded, basically, “too bad.” Thucydides reduced it to one memorable line: "the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.”

Melos refused. Athens laid siege and captured Melos, slaughtered all the men, and sold the women and children into slavery. Later, when Sparta won the war, they recovered some of the surviving Melian’s and returned them to Melos, where they lived as a vassal state to Sparta under a military governor - that is, they did not get back their freedom; they gambled and lost.

Now consider Ukraine. First, begin with this, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is flat wrong, and it is sickening that innocent people are getting killed every day. But here’s the problem: Ukraine is losing, and losing badly. This isn’t really debatable. The Ukrainian government admits to some 43,000 dead, but sources inside the government suggested in December that the number was a bit over 70,000. At the same time they admitted to having 56,000 missing (a number they had admitted to at the end of summer). Then, in an unguarded aside, one of the ministers noted that most of the missing were in fact known to be dead. That puts the number of dead at over 120,000 as of 4 months ago. And it is accepted by virtually everyone that the numbers have been massaged down.

Russian killed in action is somewhere in that same range (serious estimates run between 95,000 and 140,000, more than 10,000 of which were penal colony troops). Add on about 350,000 wounded to both sides, perhaps more, and you are approaching 1 million total combat casualties.

Said differently Ukraine has essentially the same number of casualties as Russia (though there is serious speculation that Ukraine’s KIA count and overall casualty count is considerable higher).

And no one has a plan to win the war.

But Ukraine’s problems are actually greater. Ukraine’s population in 1991 was 52.4 million. By 2022 the population was 43 million officially, but probably several million less, the others having moved to Europe; the world bank listed the population as 38 million in 2022. Since the war’s start at least 6 million have left the country, at last two million now live in Russian occupied territory, and unofficial estimates place the current population at 33 million or less; Russia’s population is 147 million. Meanwhile, Ukraine has a fertility rate of 1.2, in the bottom 5% world wide (Russia’s rate is 1.52). Put all these numbers together and the result is that Ukraine is dying. At this rate, Ukraine in 50 years will have less than 10 million people. Add on top of this infrastructure damage that exceeds $600 billion, roughly 4 times the country’s pre war GDP.

Both Melos and Ukraine made strategic errors; Melos in refusing to join the Delian League, Ukraine in giving up their nuclear weapons. 

The objection is that if Melos had joined the Athenian alliance the same thing would have happened to them in the end; perhaps, except Sparta didn’t slaughter the citizens of the Delian league, or sell them into slavery.

Thing is, strategic errors have grave consequences. The Melians found that out, but too late, and for all intent and purposes, ceased to exist. Ukraine has found that out as well, but arguably still has time to salvage some sort of survival. But to do so will require hard decisions.

Ukraine needs to end this war, even on terms that leave 20% in Russian hands, or the destruction of the country is going to continue, and possibly accelerate. They might hold out and insist they will keep fighting until the Russian army breaks and the Russians quit. Perhaps that will happen.

But what happens if the Ukrainian army breaks first? Or there is a global recession and the US and the EU find it difficult to continue to aid Ukraine at the appropriate level? Or political turmoil in the EU reduces support to Ukraine? 

In fact, there are a host of ways the war could unfold if it continues, and few of them would seem to point to Ukraine’s victory.

The most favorable outcome right now appears to be a Korea-like ceasefire and DMZ. And like Korea, they can choose to have a ceasefire now, or wait a year or two, add two more years of casualties to the current numbers, and then have a ceasefire.

Or they can let the war drag on and, like the Melians, Ukraine may well end up only a memory in the history books. 

Like the Melians it may not matter, and Ukraine cannot dig itself out of its demographic hole. If so, in 20 or 30 years Ukraine will be gone even if they chose the Korean solution. But right now it’s a near certainty.