It is not that many heads of state and heads of government would do what Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, has done since 2014 with respect to Ukraine, but there are heads of state and heads of government who yearn for the authority, the power, to choose to make the decision to do what President Putin has done since 2014 with respect to Ukraine.   

The common thread amongst those with power is they want more of it and they want to retain it for as long as possible- often thinking in terms of a lifetime- their lifetime and perhaps their children’s lifetime.  An elected head of state and head of government succumbing to oft-repeated medieval tendencies to spread one’s offspring and relatives and friends throughout government and within lucrative private-sector positions operates today in a turbo-charged manner.  

Democracies are designed to constrain the executive branch- head of state, head of government, or both.  Authoritarians, Autocrats have enhanced flexibility- and they often view their colleagues trapped by congresses and parliaments as constrained and weakened while their constrained and weakened colleagues view them with envy. 

Heads of state and heads of government won’t admit it, but unsurprising when alone in their office they project themselves admiring the control exerted by Xi Jinping; President of the People’s Republic of China, the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, Recap Tayyip Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkiye, who shared at the inaugural gathering of the European Political Community (EPC) in Prague, Czech Republic:  

“Whatever country bothers us, whatever country attacks us, our reaction will always be to say: we could undoubtedly come in the middle of the night.”