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How do you know a hero when you see one? Can we predict heroism or cowardice?
Typically I’m more in the “Great Forces of History” camp than the “Great Men of History” camp, more Hobsbawm than Carlysle. Current events might be changing my mind.
The conventional wisdom from Kofman to Ilforte to my Polish cousins seems to be that Putin made a tremendous blunder in invading Ukraine and attempting to implement regime change. That the balance of forces was always against Russia, and that invading only made that apparent. But I’m not sure that follows the available evidence available before the invasion. Putin’s strategy meetings might have amounted to “Lads, it’s Tottenham”; but they were wearing Tottenham jerseys after all.
It seems to me more likely that Putin took a gamble, a good gamble, which had positive expected value, and came up absolutely snake eyes on the heroism of a relative handful of Ukrainians. It’s wildly unfair to blame Putin for not expecting this guy would start acting like a Slavic Churchhill, when one could have expected a performance more akin to Ghani or at best like Tsikhanouskaya. If you really drew an org chart with leadership roles and dates of events, there were maybe 100 Ukrainians, from TDF and police commanders who chose to fight in Kyiv at key moments to key governmental figures without whom the whole Ukrainian resistance project would have collapsed, to a handful of nationalist psychopaths who chose what seemed like certain death over letting down the side.
But let’s focus on the guy at the top: Zelensky. His early life contains few signs of heroism, or even of particular nationalism or patriotism, very little of obvious self-sacrifice and duty. He’s been in the media industry for his entire adult life. Nor in media was he some Mishima-esque hyper-patriot, he voiced Paddington Bear in the dubs and some of his movies were banned in Ukraine under nationalist laws he opposed, not a bloodthirsty nationalist. Obviously I lack the language skills to really delve into his oeuvre or personality, but there’s little there that would predict that when the chips were down he would stay in Kyiv..
I’m having trouble tracking down citations, but I recall pre-war and in the early war the theory that NATO would immediately evacuate Zelensky and enough of his government to form a reasonable government-in-exile for Ukraine, while funding/arming terrorist groups inside Ukraine, gleefully described as “making Ukraine into Russia’s Afghanistan.” Had Zelensky chosen to go along with that plan, I think Kyiv falls by the end of March, even with a higher assessment of Ukrainian skill today than I had then. [It’s in the nature of asymmetric wars
that demonstrative symbolic victories
are critical to maintaining popular support. Fleeing was a choice he very much could have made, that many leaders have made, that some would call not the cowardly choice but the humanitarian choice to spare his people the suffering of war. But he didn’t.
And I’m left asking, can we predict that? How can we predict how leaders will react under pressure? How can we predict how wars and matters of state will conclude if they hinge on these personal decisions of individual, fallible, men?
Maybe we can blame that on systems. Maybe hyper nationalist Ukrainian networks were ready to kill him if he jumped, and the guy was stuck between picking how to die. But that strikes me as a little too pat an explanation, eliminating the individual by inventing a system that we can put our faith in.
Or maybe there’s some psychological profile? Surely the armies of the world have looked into this, studied this? What conclusions have been reached, and how can we apply them?
I'm unsure why Zelensky fleecing the west, consolidating power, and eliminating domestic opposition is heroic. Sure, he could have fled the country, but why? It was perhaps brave in the war's beginning, but once it became clear Russia had drastically less competence than expected the calculus changes. Zelensky is setting himself up to be President for life and a heroic icon. Fleeing would be worse for him.
Not fleeing when his country was invaded by a superior military power, which very clearly intended to at least imprison and probably kill him, is almost definitionally heroic. I speak not of righteousness or wickedness, it doesn't really matter whether the cause underlying the conflict favors one side or the other or neither, there were heroic actions on both sides of WWI and in WWII and the Crimean war and Waterloo. I've no doubt that there are thousands of Russians who have behaved heroically in this war; I'm impressed that Russia's equivalents to neocons at least occasionally put their money where their mouth was.
But his country was invaded by Russia.
Did you predict this outcome before it became apparent? I sure didn't.
I predicted that Russia would win but it would be slow, bloody, and unpleasant affair lasting a few years. I'm less confident in that prediction with how pathetic Russia's been, but I can't say for sure I was wrong until late 23 or so. I will say Russia's incompetence was surprising; I knew they'd declined, but the degree of that decline was above and beyond.
If you predicted Russia would win, then how do you think Zelensky should have known ex ante that they weren't being invaded by a superior military power?
I predicted Russia would win after a multi-year slog that does not result in Zelensky's exile, death, or imprisonment, and also does not end in the dissolution of the Ukrainian state. That has been my stance since all of this began: that Russia will win, that it is not worth it for them to win, and that we really just should have stuck with the pre-Maidan status quo rather than meddling and fucking everything up. This entire affair was a masterstroke of the very American hegemony I loathe as an American and I hate every side involved.
I apologize for boiling that down to low-light "lul Russia" quips. I will respond more seriously to you:
My explicit position is that this entire war is a senseless tragedy provoked by western interests. Putin is a terrible man and he is ultimately responsible for his actions, but provocation is real and we have been poking the bear for a long time for no reason other than a deep-seated hatred of Russians swimming in the very DNA of our ruling class. Russia has been a boogieman since the fall of the Soviet Union used to drum up support and justification for the ever-expanding grasp of the American leviathan. Our interference in Ukraine years ago is what set the stage for this inevitable conflict -- a conflict which at best will be a Pyrrhic victory for Russia, for even if they seized Ukraine their reward is merely having Ukraine, in no way worth the grotesque costs piling up.
The only winners are America and their chosen ones. In the Ukraine, this is Zelensky. He's a pretty face whose primary skill is performance art. He has become a culture hero for doing what would be expected of any man in his position; "run away from your country at the start of a grueling war" is not an expected default action for leaders. He's used the war to implement strongman leadership, purge political rivals, and secure his personal legacy for the rest of his life.
He is not a good leader. He has not risen above his station or demonstrated strength of character. He is a symbol of the inevitable triumph of American imperialism, and his reward will be either a long-term dictatorial political career or a cushy post-politics speaking tour on the first world's elite media circuits.
All of this is nakedly transparent. Ukraine is grossly corrupt. Zelensky is grossly corrupt. It's not even hidden, you don't have to trawl conspiracy websites, it's all in the open. People handwave it away with "oh but Putin is so super duper evil", and then worship Zelensky like he's a superhero, and it's so fucking pathetic that it arouses in me an immense fury. The shallow principles of the world -- Zelensky violates the same core liberties we allegedly damn Putin over, yet because Zelensky's the chosen one (much like Fauci for COVID), his blatant maleficence is gaslit away.
Russia sucks. They're big and have lots of production capabilities. They could probably blow up the world. But this abundance of arms and potential for the ultimate escalation doesn't make Russia an elite modern military force that can reasonably expect to steamroll the west; Ukraine's loss will be after a horrific meat grinder of a war that lasts years, costs tons of lives, and doesn't hurt Zelensky at all.
Yet Zelensky's the hero. The corrupt strongman demanding we give him more money so more of his people can die, and regardless of the country's fate or how many bodies his pride puts into the ground, a self-centered actor with no respect for the principles we've collectively enshrined in him will go down as their defender.
He's garbage, Russia's garbage, Ukraine's garbage, Putin's garbage. The only people involved who aren't trash are the ones dying so that American leadership can be satisfied they slew the Great Beast of their forefathers.
Eh, I actually agree with many of your premises and conclusions (US provoked Russia although Russia is responsible for its act, it's a masterstroke for US interests, Ukraine is kind of a shitty corrupt country, both sides will suffer horribly in this meat grinder of a war, etc.), but I do think there's something innately heroic about defending your homeland from invaders even at great cost, and I think you understate the difficulty of what Ukraine and Zelensky have achieved, and the personal risk that he and his family took by remaining. Yes, Zelensky is a pretty face with a background in TV comedy, but playing well on TV is exactly what helped him rally the West behind his cause. I think it's incredible how well suited he was for his moment, and how well he has done with it.
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