In our time, the aspiration to great statesmanship has been conspicuous in its absence. Our heads of state are leaders in name only. A statesman, Edmund Burke said, “acts on enduring principles and for immortality.” Today’s political culture is largely principle-free and short-term-focused, dominated by leaders fixated on opinion polls, media strategy, and the next election cycle.
In the early months of the Ukraine war, a who’s who of forgettable presidents and prime ministers lined up for photo-ops with Volodymyr Zelensky, whose mere fatigue-clad presence could at least offer a temporary distraction from their own insignificance and mediocrity. As The New York Times’ Peter Coy remarked at the time: “Courage seemed to be dead. Then came Zelensky.” The “Zelensky-washing” that followed has been a largely unsuccessful attempt to compensate for the statesmanship deficit.