Unable to resist an Athenian assault, and with the Athenian navy barring any overseas reinforcements, the Melians had little recourse. They could surrender or die fighting. They opted for battle, and lost their city after a short, bloody siege. Does China want to impose a Melian fate on Taiwan? Not in a strict sense, but Beijing—whether it realizes it or not—is relying on the inexorable logic of power explicated by the Athenian emissaries. Antiquity holds valuable lessons despite the passage of time.

All this means that Taiwan can’t expect justice from China from a position of weakness. Too grave a power mismatch across the Strait will leave Taipei with few options while disheartening the island’s inhabitants and their leaders. A PLA powerful enough to command the waters and skies adjoining the island could deter, delay, or defeat outside succour, presumably from US Pacific Fleet units operating across great distances from Japan, Guam, and Hawaii. To give themselves the time Prof. Lynch rightly says they need, the Taiwanese government and armed forces must apply their energies and ingenuity to devising a naval and aerial strategy that denies the PLA control of the Strait, holding off an invasion force, and that helps US reinforcements fight their way into the theatre.

Only by doing this can Taiwan preserve its de facto independence for long enough to matter. China doesn’t yet boast the overwhelming supremacy of Athens over its environs. The United States is by no means as powerless as Sparta. And Taiwan’s plight does not yet approach that of Melos.

But Taipei must act lest things degenerate that far.

James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara are associate professors of strategy at the US Naval War College, where Yoshihara holds the Van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies. The views voiced here are theirs alone.