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When she recently retired after serving some 16 years as Chancellor of Germany, I, along with legions of others, praised the leadership of Angela Merkel. I admired her integrity and intelligence, her compassion and competence, her temper, and her temperament.  She was of course, like all mere mortals, imperfect. But her benefits so outweighed her deficits she stood out not only among leaders in Europe but among leaders worldwide.  

One of her strengths was the steady way in which she managed her long relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Merkel was born in East Germany when it was still a member of the Soviet bloc. She was quite clear-eyed, then, about Putin, who happened to know Germany well. So, while Putin knew Germany – he had lived there for years and remained fluent in the German language – Merkel knew Russia. She spent the first thirty-five years of her life under its thumb.

Because of their shared history, each was assumed to have the measure of the other. For the decade and a half during which both led major European powers their relationship was cordial and civil, but also careful, cautious. Moreover, after the Kremlin tried to poison Putin’s fiercest domestic opponent (in 2020), Alexei Navalny, and after Merkel not only gave Navalny medical treatment but offered him political asylum (he accepted the former but rejected the latter), their relations cooled.    

This did not, however, preclude Merkel from continuing to approve of the now famous/infamous Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. The project, while exceedingly expensive to build, and all along contentious, promised to deliver immense benefits to the German people. It would double the flow of gas into their country, making their use of energy far cheaper. So, while on the one hand Merkel had the temerity to take on Putin – in addition to providing succor to his archenemy, she took the lead in imposing sanctions against Russia for its annexation of Crimea – on the other hand she was stuck with what she had wrought. A business deal with Putin that promised to deliver immense benefits to both sides. The Russians would be paid handsomely for their gas; the Germans would pay far less at the proverbial pump.

As the crisis in Ukraine started to unfold, it was left to Merkel’s successor, Olaf Scholz, who had just taken over as Chancellor, to suspend the Nord Stream project, likely forever. (Ironically, his happened just as the spigot was ready to be turned on.) For all Merkel’s even-handedness then, for all those years during which she tried to manage both Germany’s relationship with Russia and hers with Putin – between 2012 and 2020 the two leaders spoke 67 times, and they met on 34 different occasions – in the end she failed.

A year ago, U. S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Nord Stream 2 was a “Russian geopolitical project intended to divide Europe and weaken European energy security.” Nor was he the only American repeatedly to raise the alarm. None other than Texas Senator Ted Cruz has been sounding this gong for years, concerned that allowing the pipeline to be built would encourage Putin to act more aggressively.

Still, Merkel stayed the course. She stayed the course not only with a pipeline but with a leader whose murderous past was prologue to his murderous present.

Is there a lesson to be learned? Yes, there are two. First, those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. Second, no matter how clever a leader you are, never get into bed with another leader who has laid waster to a city – not to speak of two.  

Just two weeks ago venerable New York Times columnist David Brooks published an editorial titled, “The Century of the Strongman Begins.” It’s an excellent piece – or it so it seemed at the time.

Brooks argued the liberal world order was in crisis, a theme by now a commonplace. The reason for the crisis, Brooks wrote, was democracy has been permitted to wilt while the world “returns to normal.” What’s normal? “In normal times, people crave order and leaders like Vladimir Putin arise to give it to them.” Brooks went on to add that Putin has “redefined global conservatism and made himself its global leader.”

How quaint this reading of history seems today or, better, how wrong. Today Putin might be many things, but leader of “global conservatism” he is not.

In the last several days many talking heads have remarked how, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the world had suddenly changed. Most point to change in Europe, especially in Germany, which almost overnight pivoted from nearly neutral on Russia to one of its most hard-headed opponents.

But I would suggest something more fundamental. That the world has changed because the crisis of liberal democracy has morphed into an appreciation of liberal democracy. A gratitude for liberal democracy – which is to say a gratitude for the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Repeatedly in the last week we saw Ukrainians willing, literally, to sacrifice their lives for what Americans have come to take for granted. This is not to say that joining the liberal world order is their only motivation. It is not. What drives Ukrainians above all is their patriotic fervor – their dedication to their homeland, their history, their culture, their language. All of which they see as entirely separate and distinct from those of Russia. Still, their gravitation – for reasons of a painful past, a promising present, and a palpable yearning for a better future – toward Europe, toward the democratic ideal, has been an incalculably powerful motivator. For Ukrainians they are an inspiration.

It would, then, be a supreme irony of history if this turns out not the century of the strongman, but the century of the strongman’s demise. Putin will not survive this crisis. Oh, he might in the short term. But he will not in the long term. In time Ukraine will do him in.

The real question is Xi – Xi Jinping and others of his ilk. Too soon to know, obviously, how the current crisis will end. How much wreckage before Putin’s demise? (Literal or political.) Safe to assume, though, that strongmen all over the world are paying close attention to the calamity in East Europe. And that whatever the mistakes that Putin has made – is making, will make – their intention will be not to repeat them.   

A counterfactual is something that did not happen. Counterfactuals are, then, intellectual exercises. We ask ourselves what would have happened if, for example, a leader had done this instead of that, chosen to go left as opposed to right.

So, here’s today’s counterfactual: What if Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy had chosen to tell the truth? I refer not to the truth of the last week, but to the truth of the month before.

Fact is that in the weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine U.S. Intelligence warned, repeatedly, that Russian President Putin was almost certain to pull the trigger. Almost certain to give his military the go ahead to invade Ukraine and then to occupy it as long as necessary to get its government to heel. The Biden administration was not able to pinpoint when precisely the invasion would take place. But it did suggest, again, repeatedly, that, in deference to China, it would not happen until after the Olympics were over. Which is, of course, precisely what occurred.

The Europeans generally were skeptical of the American warnings. But it’s one thing to be skeptical if you’re the leader of Germany or Italy, Belgium, or Spain. It’s quite another to be skeptical if you’re the leader of Ukraine – of the country reportedly under Damocles’ sword.       

In the runup to the invasion Zelenskyy did not level with his people. He did not warn them this could possibly happen, not to speak of probably happen. Either because he did not believe Russia would invade, or because he thought it best to keep it to himself, instead of issuing warnings he accused the U.S. and the press of threatening to create panic by referring to the Russians as coming. Rather than say this time could well be different, he reminded Ukrainians they had lived with the threat of Russian aggression for years.

What if Zelenskyy had done otherwise?  What if instead of playing down the danger of war he would more readily have said – publicly – that the worst-case scenario might come to pass? Would the Ukrainians have been more prepared? Militarily, psychologically, personally, and practically?

I’m not arguing there are right answers to questions like these. The Ukrainian leader was, obviously, ensnared in a situation with no good options. Still, fact is that though in the week after the invasion Zelenskyy has properly been called a hero, in the month before his judgment is open to question.      

In the leadership field the word “follower” has always been, and remains, problematic.  Among the several frustrations with the words “leader” and “follower” is that, as these words are usually used, sometimes leaders don’t lead, and followers don’t follow. Still, I cannot claim that leadership is a system (as opposed simply to a person) without taking into account, in addition to leaders, followers.

Given I am writing here about the crisis in and around Ukraine and given the leader at center of the action is Russian President Vladimir Putin, I am using the word follower as broadly defined. In this situation Putin is the leader because he initiated the action. He started this crisis, and he continues, so far, in large part to determine what happens next. Everyone else, including Presidents Joe Biden and Volodymr Zelenskyy, are followers in that Putin is obliging or even compelling them to respond to what he does. Putin is the actor. Everyone else is a reactor.

Here a partial list of Putin’s followers:

1. President Volodymr Zelenskyy. Putin has transformed him into a hunted man. Zelenskeyy has been forced into hiding – he now speaks to his people, to the world, from a bunker.
2. President Joe Biden. Putin has pushed him into being a wartime president.  The Russian has derailed the best laid plans of the American – not what Biden bargained for.
3. Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Putin has got him to do what many thought impossible: commit to Germany’s spending more than 2% of its annual economic output on defense.
4. Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Putin has obliged the Hungarian leader and Putin admirer publicly to pivot. Publicly to side with the European Union to oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
5. President Ignazio Cassis and Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. Putin got the Swiss government, led by Cassis, finally to break with its centuries-long history of neutrality. And Putin got the Swedish government, led by Andersson, finally to break with its own long, previously rock-solid history of neutrality. Both governments have come out decisively in defense of Ukraine. And both are putting money where their mouths are.
6.  Russian oligarchs. Putin made some of the world’s wealthiest people – Russian men who, for decades, gave their leader unswerving, unquestioning, servile support – take a second, more jaundiced look at their onerous patron. A few have had the temerity publicly to question Putin’s decision.  
7. Russian people. Putin inspired relatively large numbers of Russians to, at great personal risk, take to the streets to protest the Russian invasion. People power was used against Putin in some 48 cities across the country.
8. Russian government/ Russian military. Putin has pushed both into a massive military undertaking targeted directly against men, women, and children previously described as their brethren.
9. Big Business. Putin has triggered an exodus of companies from Russia, many of which have worked profitably in the country for years.  From oil and gas companies to large banks to automobile manufacturers, many are leaving, one of the reasons Russia’s economy is cratering.
10. Ukrainian people. Putin has made them hate him. He has motivated Ukrainians to become fierce fighters, ready, willing and able members of a massive resistance. But he has also upended them, endangered them, maimed them, and killed them. He has coerced them into a state of widespread privation, pressured them by the hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, and forced them to fear for their lives.   

Among students of the American presidency Ronald Reagan was known as a great communicator. In fact, he was called “the great communicator” because during his years as governor of California, and as president of the United States, he was preternaturally skilled at reaching his audiences – at connecting with them, educating them, persuading them, and ingratiating himself with so many of those with whom he came into contact, whether in person or on television.

Reagan experts agree he developed his skills as a communicator during the approximately three decades in which he was an actor. As is of course well known, Reagan was notably successful in Hollywood, in film; later he further excelled as a pitchman who appeared regularly on television.  In other words, by the time he entered politics at the state and national levels, he had had many years of experience as a performer, and as what today would be called an influencer.

Now there is another great communicator. Though the term has not yet been applied to Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelenskyy, it should be. In a period of less than a week Zelenskyy has been able to connect with audiences worldwide, to educate them, to persuade them, and to ingratiate himself with legions of those with whom he came into contact – in person, on television, and on social media. Indeed his easy, exceedingly effective use of social media is a vivid reminder of what he was not long ago, like Reagan an actor, and, yes, by now, famously also a comedian.

Zelekskyy has proven especially adroit at managing his image, his physical self. Sometimes dressed in a dark suit, sometimes in a t-shirt, sometimes in military fatigues. Sometimes standing in the street with his team behind; sometimes facing the camera entirely alone, perhaps before an old, ornate building, perhaps before a large illustrative map.

He’s also been an excellent wordsmith. In addition to the now well-known line I quoted in another recent post has been, for example, this one. “When you attack us you will see our faces – not our backs but our faces.” And this one, a dire warning to Western leaders that if they did not provide assistance, “War will knock on your doors.” And yes, this one, on the guilt that settles on the shoulders of bystanders: “Indifference makes you an accomplice.” No surprise that Zelenskyy’s speechwriters were plucked from the business of show business. There are differences between writing for a tv show and writing for a president in a time of crisis – but there are important similarities as well. Above all, speakers, leaders, have got to grab the audience and not let go until the show is over.

What should we make of this? Is it just coincidence that these two exceptional leaders, these two great communicators, honed their skills as performers? Performing, literally, in front of countless people over periods of many years? I say no – no coincidence. I say that to become a great communicator one could do much worse than to take to the stage.

None of this is to say that what President Zelenskyy has said in the last week, not to speak of how he has looked, is more important than what he has done. Rather it is to say that messages matter and the ability to convey them matters almost as much. Great leadership is great performance – maybe not always, but usually.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine. In the leadership literature is a phrase that applies only on rare occasion – “man meets moment.” It was coined when women were not yet conceivably part of the picture and, of course, even now, as national leaders they comprise only a fraction of the whole. (Out of some 195 countries in the world, about 26 are led by women.) But my point is obviously not about gender. It’s about those few moments in history when a particular circumstance seems from one moment to the next to transform a leader, turn him into something altogether different from what he was before. Setting aside the fact that Zelenskyy was a comedian and an actor with virtually no political experience until he was elected president of Ukraine less than three years ago and setting aside the fact that publicly at least he predicted the Russians would not invade, since the invasion took place three days ago, he has been a fool (as referenced in a recent post) because he is clearly at great risk of imprisonment, torture, and death. But (as also referenced in a recent post) he is clearly, more clearly with every passing hour, also a hero. He has emerged as a leader on a mission. He has displayed enormous physical courage, an enormous capacity to rally his followers, and an equally impressive ability to persuade outsiders they should, they must, join his, the Ukrainian people’s, cause. If Zelenskyy were to be murdered tomorrow, he will forever be remembered as a martyr, ready and willing to die for his cause. If, somehow, he manages to survive this trial by fire, he will forever be remembered as a hero for the ages. In the last week the Biden administration repeatedly offered Zelenskyy a safe escape, a way of getting out of Ukraine while he still could. His most recent response? “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.”    
• Vladimir Putin, President of Russia. He will not now be deterred. For him humiliation is not an option. He will fight to the death, if need be his own.

• Vladimir Putin, President of Russia. Within a couple of days of launching Russia’s war of choice against Ukraine, are signs Putin bit off more than he can comfortably chew.  Setting aside the punishments inflicted by the West and setting aside whatever the measure of the Ukrainian resistance, others are getting into the act – and they don’t much like what they see. Xi has gotten nervous the situation in Europe is getting out of hand – he’s even offered to play mediator. Hungarian Prime Minster Viktor Orban, Putin’s pal, has felt obliged on this one to side with Europe and against Russia. And India’s Prime Minster, Narendra Modi, has called for an “immediate cessation of violence.” Who’s left to stand by their man, Putin? Oh wait. There’s always Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro.
• Joseph Biden, President of the United States. He’s managed under difficult circumstances to stay steady. On the one side to convey strength and resolve, and on the other not to be pushed into imposing the most extreme level of sanctions against Russia, or to cut off diplomatic channels. I’m not arguing here that Joe Biden is Winston Churchill. Nor am I suggesting that I agree with his every decision at every step. Still, give the man credit. He’s doing what he set out to do. He, his administration, predicted the Russians were coming. They did – and the White House was prepared.
• Volodymr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine. The same cannot be said for Zelenskyy. If he knew the Russians were coming, he did not share the information with the Ukrainian people. To the contrary: in recent weeks he repeatedly reassured them there would be no Russian invasion. Still, to say that he was caught between a rock and a hard place is to understate it. The man now has a target on his back, and yet he’s hanging in and standing proud, offering still to talk to Putin if only Putin would return the favor. Is Zelensky a hero? Or a fool? Both?
• Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, and Olaf Scholz, respectively Prime Minister of Great Britain, President of France, and Chancellor of Germany. For different reasons, the last several days have chastened all three. Johnson has been obliged to shed his usual glib even buffoonish self. Macron has been obliged to shed his preening posturing, of European stateman.  And Scholz had been obliged to compensate for the mistake made by his widely admired (including by me) predecessor, Angela Merkel, who chose to get into bed with Putin for the privilege of his natural gas.
• Xi Jinping, President of China. He’s turned out a wild card. One day making nice to Putin, the next day seeming to have second thoughts. My best guess is he will not want to play the part of Putin’s partner. It’s one thing to have played kissy-kissy with the Russian during the recent Olympics, when he flew to China for the express purpose of cozying up to its president. But it’s quite another to stand alongside a bit of a madman who’s managed single-handedly to infuriate or at least alienate most everyone who is anyone.     

I include myself among those in shock though not awe.  In these posts – “Putin Patrol Continued” – and elsewhere I’ve followed the man for years. And I’m a longtime student of Russian politics. But truth is I did not fully believe until it happened that President Vladimir Putin would decide that Russia should invade the sovereign state of Ukraine not just in part, but in whole.

Putin has taken to referencing his nuclear arsenal. So, what we have now is not a worst-case scenario. But it’s bad enough.  As others have pointed out, we face the surreal but real enough situation in which there is a hot war on the European continent, the first since 1945. What Putin just did was evocative of Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 – and we all know where that led.

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright just wrote an editorial expressing her view that by invading Ukraine Putin has made a grave strategic mistake. Over the long term, she argues the Russian people will suffer severe consequences, including diplomatic, military, and financial pain.

If this is possible, maybe even probable, why would Putin do what he did? Why would he risk so much and deviate so dangerously from what have become international norms? And why would he behave so curiously, among other signs and symptoms delivering long rants in recent days in which his fervor and fury are blatantly apparent?   

Questions like these return us to the riddle of whether Putin is a rational actor. Is he normal or abnormal? Is he, arguably like his crony, Donald Trump, mentally stable or at least somewhat unstable?

These are, of course, entirely academic questions that can never be answered with certainty. But for the moment at least the West has no choice but to assume that along with being evil, Putin is irrational.

The Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin is the title of the greatest book by one of America’s greatest historians, Timothy Snyder. Snyder describes the bloodlands as follows: “In the middle of Europe in the middle of the twentieth century, the Nazi and Soviet regimes murdered some fourteen million people. The place where all the victims died, the bloodlands, extends from central Poland to western Russia, through Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states.” During the Second Word War Ukraine was, in other words, at the heart of the killing.

But that’s not all. The Ukrainians endured enormous suffering before the war even started. They were decimated not only by the Holocaust but by the Holodomor, known also as the Great Famine. The Great Famine in what then was Soviet Ukraine lasted from 1932 – 1933. It was the direct result of Stalin’s wretched efforts forcibly to extract from Ukraine grain, thereby imposing on the country draconian policies that led to what has been estimated at 4 million direct famine deaths, and another 6 million birth defects.     

After the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1991, Ukraine remained in Russia’s orbit. Until 2014. In 2014, in consequence of people’s protests so determined and prolonged they came to be considered revolutionary, a new government was installed. This government was much more friendly to Europe than to Russia, a sin for which the Ukrainians have never been forgiven – by Putin.  

So, here we are. Putin taking revenge. The West plotting its response. The Ukrainians again in the middle of the miserable action.  

Postscript: It happens – no surprise – that Timothy Snyder just spoke about Ukraine at Harvard. Here is a highly pertinent piece from the Harvard Gazette about his remarks. Note his comment about regarding Ukraine as “the most interesting country in Europe.” Upending Putin’s Russia-Ukraine myth – Harvard Gazette

• Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.  Has the world watching his every move, hanging on his every word.  Has taken center stage, likes it there, plans for the time being to stay right where he is.

• Joseph Biden, President of the United States. Has been forced not to act but to react. Has no choice but to put the crisis in Europe at the top of his agenda. Plans for his domestic agenda largely on hold. Biden’s one consolation? So far at least, on this single issue, on Ukraine, he has had bipartisan backing.

• Volodymr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine. Erstwhile actor and, yes, comedian, has done his level best to stay the course, keep his constituents calm, and shore up his alliances – all the while playing what is, inarguably, a wretchedly weak hand.

• Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Publicly greatly distraught by the greatest threat to peace on the European continent since the end of World War II.  Privately greatly relieved that “Party-Gate” has been relegated to the back burner.

• Emmanuel Macron, President of France. Been chatting more often with Putin than any other European leader. The upside is it keeps Macron, who is facing an early election, in the middle of the action. The downside is his chats with Putin have gone nowhere.

• Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of Germany. He could have done without this crisis; after all, he just succeeded his singularly esteemed predecessor, Angela Merkel. Germany is, moreover alarmingly weakly positioned, given its overreliance on energy from Russia. Still, there he is – stuck. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

• Xi Jinping, President of China. The Olympics have been a bit of a distraction. But only a bit. Xi is reveling in the stress on the European continent. Xi is watching what Putin’s doing with the cold, hard eye of a seasoned strongman. Xi is thinking Taiwan and licking his chops.