It is often said that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. George Santayana’s warning has been passed down through generations like a civic commandment. But perhaps the truth is harsher: history repeats itself not because we forget, but because human nature insists on it.

Even when we remember, we still yield to the same temptations—power, pride, fear, greed. These constants of human behavior are what drive nations to war, topple empires, and corrupt governments. Thucydides, writing nearly 2,500 years ago about the Peloponnesian War, observed that the motives of human action—honor, fear, and interest—are unchanging. Swap out Athens and Sparta for Washington and Moscow, and the script hardly needs editing.

That is what makes our current politics so unnerving. We know

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