Author: Barbara

Emperors are leaders above all others. They are the highest monarch – in honor and rank they surpass kings. Empires, in turn, are political units that typically extend over large swaths of land. Usually they are created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries.  

Mary Beard, the English classicist widely acknowledged as a supremely accomplished expert on ancient Roman civilization, is fascinated by emperors. In her book, Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern, she explores our enduring fascination with emperors, especially those who ruled ancient Rome. “It is almost two millennia,” Beard writes, since Rome ceased to be the capital of an empire, “but even now – in the West at least – almost everyone recognizes the name and sometimes even the look, of Julius Caesar or Nero.”  

Beard’s special interest is in the depiction of emperors in art. For emperors are shown not only in paintings and sculptures, but everywhere, and in every medium, from silver to wax. “They have been turned into inkwells and candlesticks. They feature on tapestries, in pop-up decorations at Renaissance festivals, and even on the backs of a notable set of sixteenth-century dining chairs.” Nor is this sort of art available only to the elite, to nobility or to the wealthy. Rather it is equal opportunity art, faces of emperors, heads of emperors, as available to the lower and the middle as to the upper class.  

For this trend that became fashion if not fixation, Julius Caesar was largely responsible. It was this Caesar who sought to engineer the replication of his image hundreds of times over. Beard notes that never had any other ruler been so intent on having his likeness so frequently reproduced, specifically to promote his omni-presence and omni-power. Think of Julius Caesar as a supreme self-promoter, hellbent on having himself depicted in every temple in Rome and in every city in the Roman world.       

Given the origin story of the emperor in art, no surprise that the origin story of the emperor in semantics is similar. The words emperor, Caesar, czar (tsar), and Kaiser all have the same source: the first Roman emperor, Imperator Caesar Augustus. Augustus, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, later took “Caesar” as part of his own official name. Since subsequent Roman emperors did the same, over time “Caesar” came to mean emperor of Rome, and “Caesar” came similarly to mean ruler both in other places and in other languages.

 But it’s one thing for leaders who are emperors to insert their languages as their likenesses into our lives. It’s quite another thing for us to permit leaders who are emperors to insert their languages as their likenesses into our lives. For that matter, it’s yet another thing for us to permit leaders to anoint themselves emperors in the first place.

Freud said we have a “thirst for authority.” While this is not accurate all the time, it is accurate some of the time. It does apply to some people in some circumstances – which explains our enduring fascination with emperors, with strongmen. Even if some of us loathe what others of us like.  

“Leaders who lust for success have an unstoppable need to achieve.” (From Barbara Kellerman and Todd L. Pittinsky, Leaders Who Lust: Power, Money, Sex, Success, Legitimacy, Legacy.)

This week Starbucks announced the company’s founder and former CEO was coming out of retirement again to take the helm. Howard Schultz lusts for success, which explains why he is coming out of retirement to retake his leadership role not for the first time but for the second.

After stepping away as chief executive officer in 2000, he returned as chief executive officer in 2008, remaining in place until 2017, purportedly once more to retire. Now here he is again – CEO of Starbucks for the third time.

What’s going on here? Is Schultz the only person on the planet who can do the job? Or is he unable to let go? Is he drawn like the proverbial moth to the flame, in his case straight back to Starbucks to right the ship?

The company is having some problems. Most obviously with employees who have the temerity to try to unionize, and who accuse Starbucks of retaliating against them by using “aggressive union-busting tactics.” This is unsettling not only those who work at Starbucks but those who invest in Starbucks, shareholders who do not like what they see.

For Schultz, there is a special irony here, a sad one, because for decades he positioned himself as an especially beneficent leader, a thoughtful, even kindly boss whose employees were not underlings but “partners.” One might think that what turned out a yawning gap between Schultz’s rhetoric and Schultz’s reality would disqualify him from stepping into the company’s leadership role for the third time. Guess not. Guess he badly wanted to be Starbucks’ czar yet again, and yet again those around him were unwilling or unable to say no.   

This week was another announcement, a related one, this one by football icon Tom Brady, who revealed on social media that he had reversed himself. He would not do what he said he would do just two months ago – he would not retire from football. “These past two months,” said Brady, “I’ve realized my place is still on the field and not in the stands. That time will come but it is not now.” Sounds like Schultz.

Those who read my posts who also read my books will know that Tom Brady was one among the 12 leaders featured in Leaders Who Lust.  About Brady we wrote that his lust for success was independent of financial rewards or material goods. Rather it was driven by the need to stand out – to excel in the game into which he had invested every fiber of his being.

Brady has been insatiable, willing to put himself through an almost unimaginably punishing schedule, a supremely arduous workload, and the severe psychological stress that is part of the overweening need to win. But Brady’s goal is to be at the pinnacle of success. Nothing less will suffice. Which is precisely why, come summer, he will, at the ancient age of 45, be back. He’ll be back to a grueling, grinding schedule, training with the Buccaneers.  

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revived the use of a word that had long been out of fashion – totalitarianism. Given the battle for Ukraine is frequently described as “Putin’s War,” we are under the impression that the Russian president is acting alone. That he alone made the decision to invade Ukraine, and that he alone is carrying out the war in Ukraine.

The word “totalitarian” was in fashion for about thirty years, from the 1950s through the 1980s. It grew out of the history of German Naziism and Soviet Communism, especially though not exclusively during the years that Stalin was still in power. (He died in 1953.) Most famous was philosopher Hannah Arendt’s book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, especially part three titled, simply, Totalitarianism.     

To Arendt, writing in the 1950s, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were the templates for what a totalitarian leader looks like. As the word itself suggests, the implication is the totalitarian leader has total control not just of the state but of the people. Total control of everything and everyone. Moreover, totalitarian leaders are never satisfied with what they have. Invariably, inevitably, they want more. Arendt wrote:

The struggle for total domination of the total population of the earth, the elimination of every competing nontotalitarian reality, is inherent in totalitarian regimes themselves. If they do not pursue total control as their ultimate goal, they are only too likely to lose whatever power they already seized.   

Sound familiar? Sound like Putin who could not be satisfied with what he had, who needed, craved, lusted for more?    

In the 1980s the widely esteemed, Polish-born political scientist and, under President Jimmy Carter, national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, similarly described Hitler and Stalin as prototypes of totalitarian leaders. In his book – Brzezinski was also a prolific author – titled The Grand Failure, he wrote:

Both elevated the State into the highest organ of collective action, both used brutal terror as the means of exacting social obedience, and both engaged in mass murders without parallel in human history. Both also organized their social control by similar means, ranging from youth groups to neighborhood informers to centralized and totally censored means of mass communication. And, finally, both asserted that they were engaged in constructing all-powerful “socialist” states.

But before we fall into the trap of thinking that these men acted alone, let’s be clear. They did not. Of course, they did not, they could not. Like all leaders they relied on legions of others, on their followers, to do the heavy lifting.  Concentration camps were not, only, Hitler’s concentration camps. The Gulag was not, only, Stalin’s gulag. Ukraine is not, only, Putin’s War.

Arendt understood the role of the leader – the totalitarian leader – in a totalitarian system. She understood that though he was all-powerful, he was not alone nor did he act alone.

In the center of the movement, as the motor that swings it into motion, sits the Leader. He is separated from the elite formation by an inner circle of the initiated who spread around him an aura of impenetrable mystery which corresponds to his “intangible preponderance.” His position within this intimate circle depends on his ability to spin intrigues among its members and upon his skill in constantly changing its personnel. He owes his rise to leadership to an extreme ability to handle inner party struggles for power.

Is Vladimir Putin a totalitarian leader? History will decide. For now, suffice to say that even Hitler and Stalin had help.

Here’s how Simon Sebag Montefiore put it in his book, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar.

The temptation has been to blame all the crimes on one man, Stalin. There is an obsession in the West today with the cult of villainy: a macabre but inane competition between Stalin and Hitler to find the “world’s most evil dictator” by counting their supposed victims. This is demonology not history. It has the effect of merely indicting one madman and offers us no lesson about either the danger of utopian ideas and systems, or the responsibility of individuals.

Not long after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the gravity of the situation became clear. Images of burning buildings and fleeing Ukrainians were flashed around the world, which meant leaders were pressed almost immediately to respond to the crisis. For most government leaders the decision was easy. They had to say something – it was their job to make statements on American foreign policy. For most business leaders the decision was less easy. For their traditional, typical posture was publicly to maintain not only their personal neutrality, but their professional one. Maintaining the neutrality of the companies they led was more than a norm, it was a mantra.

Recently, however, sitting on the fence has become more difficult. American CEO’s, especially those who head large public companies with widespread name recognition, have been pushed, slowly but certainly, on some issues, to take a public stand. This has not pertained on motherhood and apple pie; it has pertained on hot button issues such as LGBTQ rights or Black Lives Matter. But, of course, when chief executive officers speak out, they voice not just their own views but those of the companies they represent. Moreover, when they do more than say their piece – when they act – they and those to whom they are responsible can be at risk.

Given that CEOs inevitably represent many different stakeholders, what should we assume? That the CEO is speaking only for him or herself? That the CEO is speaking for the board? That the CEO is speaking for employees? That the CEO is speaking for shareholders? Or customers, or providers, or communities? Where does it end – or begin? Not only is there on almost every important policy issue a difference of opinion, but the divisiveness can get fractious, downright nasty. Additionally, it can get costly. If CEOs say or do something that I don’t like, I, and legions of others, can take our business elsewhere.

The crisis in Ukraine has proven an exception to the general rule. CEOs of American companies were expected to, and they did, take a stand quickly, decisively, in ways that were unprecedented.

It’s not yet clear whether we’re in new territory here, whether this is a template for the future, or whether after Ukraine, CEOs will revert to their usual caution, their usual silence on topics that are politically fraught. What does seem certain is that stony silence will increasingly be a less viable option.

Which raises the question of why this crisis was a watershed. Why has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine done more to push CEOs to take a stand and, additionally, to put their money where their mouths are, than any other global crisis? Why have CEOs with astonishing speed halted their sales in Russia, shuttered their stores in Russia, suspended their transactions in Russia, withdrawn their businesses from Russia, stopped investing in Russia?  

• Moral clarity. A large, ostensibly powerful country invaded a much smaller, less powerful one, without apparent reason and with devastating consequences.
• Personal clarity. Evil is personified in Russian president Vladimir Putin. Good is personified in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
• Political past. Russia is the bad guy here – a bad guy with whom Americans are familiar. The Cold War was long ago, but not that long ago. President Joe Biden is among those of a certain age who remembers when the world was bipolar, the United States and capitalism on one side; the Soviet Union and communism on the other.   
• Political present. In recent years Republicans and Democrats have been far more divided than united. Ukraine is different. On Ukraine Republicans and Democrats have managed to present a generally united front.
• Nuclear Weapons. Putin has bandied about their use. Such talk tends to focus the mind.
• NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is America’s most important and powerful alliance. But for decades Europe’s member states, especially Germany, were largely passive participants. Ukraine changed all that. The invasion has shaken Europeans to the core, gotten the West to work in tandem.
•  Public opinion. American public opinion is remarkably clear in its preference. Americans are even willing to sacrifice for Ukraine. Last week three out of five said they would pay more at the pump to help Ukraine’s cause. Their sympathy toward Ukraine is not just an abstraction. CEOs know full well it is mirrored in their boards, workers, shareholders, and other stakeholders.  
• Triumph – for now – of stakeholder capitalism over shareholder capitalism. This movement has been percolating for years, companies increasingly pressed to ditch the profit-is-all model for one in which other values, for example, protection of the environment, become as important or, more accurately, more important than they used to be.
• Shock. Difficult to exaggerate how much of a blow has been Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has upended our sense of the world order. It has upended our sense of what – in the 21^st century – is politically and militarily possible. It has upended our sense of what should constitute a global economy. And it has upended our sense of what one man can do to one million – and then some.

What is the short answer to why corporate leaders responded to Russia’s war against Ukraine with unprecedented clarity and alacrity? Because the situation seemed, but was not, surreal.    

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.