Who will send their kids to war?

The comparison of who has made personal sacrifices for their nation with sacrifices of their family is relevant to see, to a certain extent, how much they have empathised with ordinary people’s misery and trauma, such as losing their kids in war, to achieve peace and prosperity. This empathy, where leaders and citizens bear the burden of war, truly connects leaders to their people in pursuit of meaningful peace and lasting prosperity. Not as purely a measurement of how great leaders they are, it drives deeper to how exposed they are to the consequences of their decisions for the good of humanity or the public good, as against utilising war for the protection and advancement of a small bureaucratic elite group.

The point is finally how much they act not necessarily as a good bureaucrat but, first and foremost, as a decent human being to foresee and possibly experience the pain, suffering and sacrifices of ordinary people, who may not be able to make or influence any political decision but pay a fatal price for disastrous, short-sighted and cruel decisions made in highrise buildings or glittering palaces – in the very protection of impersonal bureaucracy.

With the war in Ukraine, the world is at a crossroads, with decision-making becoming human, humane, and compassionate rather than bureaucratic, impersonal, and heartless.