Hans Joachim Morgenthau (1904–1980) was a German-American political scientist. He is regarded as the father of twentieth-century international relations theory. In his landmark book Politics Among Nations (1948), he argued that international politics is driven by a struggle for power and national interest rather than morality or ideology.

His two quotes provide a microscopic and a telescopic view of the reality of international power politics and the role hubris plays in it.

In his seminal book titled In Defence of National Interest, he writes: “States are tempted to equate their foreign policies with universal morality. This happens not by ignorance or misjudgement, but by hubris and pride.”

Then, in his essay titled The Moral Dilemma of Political Action, he pens: “Political actors are always tempted—not by ignorance or misjudgement, but by hubris and pride as taught by the Greek tragedians and biblical prophets—to overlook the possibilities of their power and forget prudence and morality.”

History is replete with examples of empires making unwise decisions based on hubris, pride, and a utopian moral image of themselves. They indulge in wars that appear to be the easiest of undertakings at the outset, only to end in devastating setbacks or even elimination from the chessboard of great power politics.

It was 17th Ramazan, 13th March 624 CE. It had been two years since the Prophet (PBUH) had migrated to Madina. The Quraysh were oozing with pride. Although they could have mustered many more to their force, they were sure that they would eliminate the Muslims, who they thought were ill-prepared, small in number, and did not have enough armaments to fight.

On this day, according to Islamic sources, 313 Muslims faced over 1,000 Quraysh. The Quraysh suffered a crushing defeat, losing key leaders, including Abu Jahl, with 70 men killed and 70 taken captive. They were forced to make a disorganised retreat that severely damaged their prestige and power in Arabia.

Western historians have not given it the importance it merits, but this was the first existential threat to the religion of Islam. If a large number of Muslims had embraced shahadat that day, Islamic history may have been very different. Hubris led to the fall of the Quraysh and the birth of the Islamic era.

Given the ever-increasing power of weapons, prudence, restraint, and a sober recognition of limits within a moral compass by the great powers is no longer a virtue—it is a necessity

Given the ever-increasing power of weapons, prudence, restraint, and a sober recognition of limits within a moral compass by the great powers is no longer a virtue—it is a necessity

The Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BCE) were initiated by King Darius the Great to punish Athens, primarily for the Ionian Revolt (499–493 BCE). He demanded “Earth and Water” as tokens of submission, which were refused by Athens and Sparta.

His son Xerxes, in 480 BCE, attacked them with reportedly hundreds of thousands of men, believing that the Greeks stood no chance against such a massive army. Instead, while Xerxes watched from his golden throne, his overextended navy was decimated by the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis, leading to the weakening of his empire and ushering in the Greek era.

Napoleon Bonaparte, a military genius, achieved spectacular victories from the 1790s to 1809 against all odds, creating an aura of invincibility which led to the introduction of the term “victory disease” or hubris.

Suffering from this disease, he launched the Russian invasion in June 1812 with 600,000 men, overconfident that he would crush Tsar Alexander I. Several of Napoleon’s key advisors and generals had strongly advised against the Russian invasion. On 19th October 1812, only 100,000 starving, frostbitten soldiers returned, thus sealing his fate. But hubris led him to go to war at Waterloo in 1815, which he lost. He formally surrendered on 15th July 1815 aboard the British ship HMS Bellerophon. He was incarcerated on St Helena, a remote volcanic island in the South Atlantic, where he died alone at the age of 51. “Victory disease” led to his inglorious end.

7th May 2025: India, in its misplaced strategic overconfidence and thinking that Pakistan was a pushover, attacked its nuclear-armed neighbour. She underestimated Pakistan’s resolve and the unpredictable nature of modern war. Resultantly, it lost seven aeroplanes, which was announced by President Trump. It requested a ceasefire on 10th May 2025.

In her hubris of being overly powerful and its manifest destiny of Akhand Bharat, India forgot the historic lesson: wars initiated on the basis of pride without forethought often lead to defeat and unintended consequences for the aggressor, especially when confronted by determined resistance.

On 26th February 2026, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Muhammad Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in an interview, said that “significant progress” had been made in the Geneva talks between Iran and the USA. This followed his statement on CNN to Christiane Amanpour on 19th February 2026 that “a US-Iran deal was very close.”

But, on 28th February 2026, despite ongoing parleys and against every dictum of the American Constitution, international law, in violation of the charter of the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions, the USA and Israel attacked Iran, killing Ayatollah Khamenei along with his family and 160 schoolgirls.

Resultantly, the Western order initiated under the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and of which the USA was the definer and defender post-1945, has been nearly upended.

Hubris was the main ingredient. Americans and Israelis believed that their military and economic power was so overwhelming that Iran, having been under sanctions since 1979, with an economy in dire straits and cut off from the world, would be defeated within days. But the opposite has happened. Iran, despite facing an Armageddon, with thousands of civilian deaths and extreme bombing, is still fighting. Rather, through a careful strategy, from their point of view (which can be strongly criticised), it has ensured that this war is exported beyond its borders.

With its stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz, it has been able to cause a cataclysmic rattling in the export of oil and other important commodities from the GCC countries, thus generating ever-increasing pressure on the world economy.

The message of history is stark: it does not punish weakness as swiftly as it punishes arrogance. The recurring lesson from time immemorial to the present day is not merely that, given resolve and the will to sacrifice, overwhelming power can be resisted, but that power blinded by hubris is destined to miscalculate.

Given the ever-increasing power of weapons, prudence, restraint, and a sober recognition of limits within a moral compass by the great powers is no longer a virtue—it is a necessity. For states that forget these attributes, history does not offer mercy, just repetition.

Hubris does not lead to an immediate fall in a single moment of defeat. It slowly erodes the foundations of empires, leading to consequences which they failed to see in time. Unfortunately, history also teaches one universal lesson: no one learns from it.

© The Friday Times