The crisis of meaningful leadership is becoming more pronounced year after year. It has hit everyone – from the United States, where right-wing populist showman Donald Trump and 81-year-old Joe Biden occasionally extending his hand in greeting to darkness fight for the presidency, to Britain, the EU, Asian, and the post-Soviet states. On the one hand, this crisis is natural due to the lack of an explicit system of coordinates and rules of the game. During the “Cold War” everything was crystal clear and countries seeking to survive and succeed in the bipolar reality could not afford the luxury of having weak and irresponsible leaders. Today, in an era of populism, when the values of realism have been outlawed, survival is no longer a sufficient incentive for awakening and rethinking. But realism is harsh and timeless, it finds and punishes everyone who puts themselves above its laws (that is, the laws of nature and being).
Everyone will be affected. It’s only a question of the severity of the consequences. States with sufficient resilience, a resource base, and deep immunity would survive. They will have to embrace the new realities and find the strength to do a thorough work on mistakes. The total majority of today’s states are Augean stables, and new Herculeses will be needed to bring them in order. Countries deprived of resources and immunity are at heightened risk. For their survival, meaningful leadership is not only desirable, but essential. At the time, the populist Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in Georgia, the dry residue of whose rule is a crumbling country that has become a geopolitical appendage of Turkey and Azerbaijan. No chance of regaining lost territory, no EU membership, hundreds of thousands of citizens barely making ends meet – but policemen not taking bribes for traffic violations and wearing nice uniforms instead. [1]
Ukraine is a country rich in resources and human potential that is on the verge of a political, economic, and demographic catastrophe. Its populist leader has so lost his tether on reality that he is openly threatening China and issuing ultimatums to the US and NATO. For Zelenskyy, international relations are a Hollywood action movie, where he plays the role of the lead character, who will have to save the whole world from evil in the face of Russia. He has become so immersed in this role that he is willing to sacrifice the real country, where real people live, for the purpose of the mission.
The situation is similar with Armenia, which has been held hostage by greedy feudal idiots since 1994, and has fallen into the grip of layman populists since 2018. Nikol Pashinyan is the same “piece of work” as Saakashvili and Zelenskyy. All three are «democrats», who have established personalist regimes, replacing public administration with daily PR and newspaper headlines. The basis of their rule is the denial of realism, the totality of their rule – lost territories, enormous casualties, and economic disruption. Pashinyan has managed to jump from declaring that Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) “is Armenia full stop” to proving foaming at the mouth that there is no Artsakh, but only Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan, in just 6 years of his rule. Every day brings a new newspaper headline – from “crossroads of peace”, which in the language of real politics means “turning the country into a cheap roadside motel”, to “real Armenia”, which will enjoy authority and respect all over the world. But who and why should respect a country that has given up its own historical memory and identity, dignity, and territories for the sake of “peace”? Pashinyan, as a low-level journalist, demands respect for the territorial integrity of Armenia by giving away its territories. He wants to make peace by begging for it on his knees from those who do not want peace but complete and unconditional surrender. Like Saakashvili and Zelenskyy, he believes not in real things but what he wants to believe. The horror and tragedy is that realism punishes idiot rulers not as much as the whole country and its people.
[1] According to an ancient Greek legend King Augeas of Elis mindlessly bred horses, but refrained from caring of and picking up after them. Cleaning these stables out became one of the 12 Labours of Hercules. The “Augean stables” expression has become a metaphor for desolation, huge mess, chaos, and filth.
