Military leaders must continue to uphold public confidence with exemplary behavior. This requires renewed commitment to education, self-improvement, reason, and duty. Placing blanket ethics training aside, we can start to relearn virtuous living by picking up copies of Republic and De Officiis. Indeed as professionals, we have an obligation to self-train on these classic works and groom our own moral excellence, for the trust of the society we serve depends on it.
President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
