OPINION: Leading the Free World

A democratic bloc needs a prominent nation that is ready to defend the collection of values that it cherishes. We call it free for shorthand, but what we mean is freedoms of expression, equality before the law, the rule of law, accountable and electable government, international respect for borders and self-determination.

The list goes on, but the underlying principles are simple enough to grasp. The leader of the free needs to be a nation that can be counted on, a country that will not flip-flop from day to day as political tides come and go.

Future historians will be stunned into incomprehension how almost three years after the start of the war in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky must still go begging and pleading from other nations for support.

What does leadership of the democratic world entail? I’d like to suggest five essential traits that must be exhibited by any nation that aspires to fill this role.

For simplicity, let’s call them the five C’s.

FIVE TRAITS OF LEADERS OF FREE NATIONS

Constancy

Required to see the job through to the end, so that one’s adversaries do not start concocting plans and strategies based on the assumption that if they are patient enough, someone will emerge who will bend to their ambitions. Military and strategic inconstancy alongside necessary political variability (which is one of the strengths of the democratic way of life) is a fatal weakness.

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Behind healthy shifting political opinions, one’s principles must be dependable. Constancy may seem a synonym to commitment, but it is the unwavering focus that is important. Commitments can come and go. I begin this list with constancy because I think it is the most crucial of the five traits; without it, little else can be reliably achieved.

A US politician recently said that he doesn’t have an “appetite” for continuing support for Ukraine. Does the Goddess of Liberty, standing over New York harbor, put down her torch now and then because she gets weary, tired and doesn’t have the appetite to think about all those demanding, annoying people who want liberty?

The defense of freedom is not a part time commitment for when we think we have an “appetite” for it. The leader of the free must grasp constantly and ceaselessly what is at stake and be ready to prod, poke and goad its allies into action, especially when their appetite is flagging.

Courage

The willingness to stand and defend the principles of the free and to have the clarity to show the world that you are willing to accept a high price to defend them.

Character

A richness of national personality that doesn’t degrade into petty infighting between political parties, but which sits within a solid foundation that cherishes the principles and ideas of free nations that have taken millennia to improve and implement. They are nurtured and protected by everyone, regardless of their political class or views.

This requires what has been termed ‘institutional forbearance’ – political parties do not view each other as mortal rivals. Instead, they gently compete to lead a nation, albeit with different political tools and economic objectives, to fundamentally the same ends. Such a people fight for individual freedom, but they possess a clearheaded sense of responsibility for the welfare of the society in which those freedoms sit.

Conviction

A deeply rooted, but nevertheless rational and thoughtful conviction that along the arc of history, societies that seek to liberate their people from autocrats, quell the inescapable human urge for power, and build and respect the political and economic mechanisms to do that, fundamentally bring better communities into the world. They stand unwaveringly with others who aspire to the same.

Confidence

A nation that is not embarrassed to stand for the ideas of the free. For inspiration on the nature of confidence, it is sometimes worthwhile to reflect on the past. We look back with admiration to ancient Athens, not only because of its philosophical accomplishments, but because of the determination with which it led the first alliance of largely democratic city states, at least by ancient standards, to oppose autocratic methods of human organization.

Over two thousand years on, you will find in Pericles’ funeral oration a statement of moral and strategic purpose – and a confidence in that purpose. It’s worth reading a few lines because it is this attitude that we require today.

“We alone do good to our neighbors not upon a calculation of interest, but in the confidence of freedom and in a frank and fearless spirit…For in the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages”.

In essence, ancient Athens believed in itself.

LEADERSHIP OF THE FREE TODAY

Possessed with the five C’s, a nation today would show a certain type of leadership. It is a leadership that displays a clear willingness to take a proactive effort to defend and protect free allies and partners, following from which the rest of the world sees that such a nation is not a weak reactionary power.

This proactiveness is the sort of leadership that makes others think twice about blowing up ships in the Gulf; it’s the sort of nerve that makes others worry about launching waves of missiles across the Middle East; it’s the sort of gutsiness that makes people wonder what displays of destructive force might be unleashed if South Korea or Taiwan were to be assailed. It is a courage that makes North Korea tremble with fear at the mere idea of sending its soldiers into Europe and the repercussions of such acts.

Above all, the constancy shown by the leader of the free gives others the confidence to fight their own battles to defend their democratic institutions, emboldened by the knowledge that out there is a powerful champion of their values who will stand alongside them, who will not buckle at the slightest electoral perturbation.

Personally speaking, I think it’s a good thing that Warsaw Pact armies didn’t sweep across the plains of West Germany at the height of the Cold War because one now begins to suspect that in the interests of escalation management, we would today be reading Marx at the weekend and reminiscing on love, Komsomol, and spring.

Our current time bears similarities to the “phony war” of 1938. It seems that many western nations have not understood that the world is already at war, the post-Second World War order is over and there can be no escalation management to preserve a world which has already passed into history.

What will determine the course of our future is the actions now taken to shape this new world. Our societies may mutate, change in thought and outlook, but they must be free. It is a solidity in its principles that Periclean Athens maintained, and we must do too. Surely everything we do, every action we take, should be guided by this higher order purpose? To achieve that, at a minimum, nations which claim to be standard bearers for freedom must pursue and exhibit the qualities I have mentioned, most especially constancy.

Charles Cockell is Professor of Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.