This map appeared on the Web a few days ago, purportedly showing the placement of French troops in Ukraine. Of course, it is as fake as a fake can be, unless you are willing to believe that the French still use paper maps, as at the time of Napoleon. But the fact that somebody created it and diffused it means something. Considering how our leaders think, French troops in Ukraine is not such a farfetched hypothesis as it may seem.

In 1940, Benito Mussolini, the Italian Duce, saw the victorious German armies advancing in France. For him, doing nothing was equivalent to appearing powerless. So, he opted for what looked like the easiest option to save his face: attack France. Historians tend to agree that he cut short the opposition of his military staff by saying that he needed “some thousands of casualties to have a place at the negotiating table.”

The result was a military and political disaster. The French, although being defeated by the Germans, put up a spirited resistance and the Italians only obtained marginal territorial gains at a high price. Then, the allies exploited Mussolini’s blunder by accusing him of “stabbing France in the back.” Worst of all, there was the effect of a basic law that operates in war just as it does in biology: “you can never do just one thing.” The attack on France snowballed, throwing Italy into a major war.

One thing that history teaches us is that leaders tend to be like that. Mussolini placed more importance on saving face than on the deaths of thousands of Italian soldiers (later, they became hundreds of thousands). Evil can be defined as a mix of ignorance and egoism, and there is no doubt that Mussolini possessed both qualities in abundance. Unfortunately, many leaders, ancient and modern, seem to possess these qualities as well.

Fast forward to our time, and we are seeing European leaders planning, or at least pretending to plan, to send armed forces to Ukraine to fight Russia. A map has appeared on the Web, apparently prospecting a French occupation of Ukraine, and there are several declarations by Western leaders that the plan to send troops there is underway.

There is some twisted logic in this idea. For a leader such as Emmanuel Macron, facing plenty of internal troubles, a defeat of Ukraine by Russia would be just as much of a humiliation as it was for Mussolini to see the French defeated by the Germans. So, Macron may be tempted to up the ante and send French troops there. Other European leaders are in similar situations.

Of course, strategically, this idea is the opposite of what happened in 1940. Mussolini was aiming at giving the coup the grace to the loser, while Macron and the others would aim at preventing the loser from receiving it. But, in political terms, it is a very similar situation. If Ukraine loses the war, it means the downfall of an entire crust of European politicians who have been betting their careers on Ukraine’s victory. And since their salaries and their perks are at stake, they will do whatever they can to keep them, even if that means “a few thousand casualties.” They know they won’t be among those sent to be droned on the battlefield. And they also know that, in a democracy, people have no say on what their governments decide to do.

Most politicians are people with zero-level empathy. They are willing to take enormous risks to save face, careless about the damage they do to ordinary people. So, what’s going to happen? Time will tell. The only sure thing is that the evilest plans of mice and men often gang agley, and we know what happened to Mussolini.

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Note: Of course, not all leaders are like Mussolini. Just as an example, think of Dwight Eisenhower, who had the gall to write such sentences as.

“Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

How is it that we can’t put decent people at the top? One of the great mysteries of our time.

h/t Christopher Mangeant