A World Bereft of Statesmanship

Most periods of Western history have their statesmen. It’s hard to imagine the late-eighteenth century absent William Pitt the Younger or the mid-twentieth century without Dwight Eisenhower.

Looking at our present political landscape, our time is bereft of individuals of similar stature. The word “statesmanship” doesn’t leap to mind these days when we think of places like Washington D.C., Jerusalem, Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, or the Vatican. We live in the world of Justin Trudeau and Jacinta Ardern—not George C. Marshall and Konrad Adenauer, or, for that matter, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

Being a statesman involves transcending everyday politics but without abandoning this realm altogether. Statesmen cannot ignore the wearisome churn of politics if they want to exercise influence. But statesmanship also means avoiding assimilation into the herd. Balancing these factors is difficult. Almost all political leaders fail.

Even when politicians are on the verge of attaining statesman-like heights, they tend to fall off their pedestal. Napoleon exemplifies this. In 1802, he terminated France’s Revolutionary wars against Europe. He then reformed France’s broken finances, promulgated a new legal code, and reconciled the French state with the Church. Gradually, however, Napoleon lost any sense of restraint. The first sign was the Duc d’Enghien’s kidnapping and judicial murder in 1804. Thereafter followed 12 years of warfare from Lisbon in the West to Moscow in the East. Total casualty estimates range from 3.5 to 7 million. Yes, the Corsican who rose from obscurity was a colossus who bestrode the West. Yet he surely flunked the statesmanship test.

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Πηγή: aier.org