When Death Becomes an Illusion of Courage: A Reading in the Logic of Power and Weakness

In a world governed by balances of power rather than intentions, awareness of one’s position and capabilities becomes a matter of survival, not an intellectual luxury. The worst mistake that nations and individuals can make is to confuse courage with recklessness, and conscious sacrifice with gratuitous death. Courage that does not stem from an accurate reading of reality does not produce victory; instead, it simply adds a new number to the list of losses that do not change anything in the equations of international politics.

In the calculations of major powers, sacrifices are not measured by a moral scale, but by a utility scale. An individual rushing into confrontation while believing himself a hero fails to realize that his death may be but a minor detail in a larger agreement, or a temporary bargaining chip on a negotiation table he does not sit at. Modern history is replete with examples of peoples pushed into confrontation, while their leaders and politicians were negotiating from safe positions, far from the theaters of fire.

The harsh irony is that those who pay the price of conflict rarely reap its rewards. Leaders emerge with victory speeches, and politicians harvest symbolic or authoritative gains, while society remains burdened with human and economic losses, and with generations psychologically and cognitively distorted. In this equation, the human being transforms from an end into a means, and from a value into fuel.

From here, the discourse on striking power becomes conditional. Possessing power in the international system is not entirely a subjective decision, but rather a result of complex international balances. The United States, Russia, and China do not allow the emergence of an influential power except when it intersects with their interests or does not threaten the structure of the existing system. Beyond that, conflict is left to drain its parties or is managed within limits that do not break the pre-set ceiling.
In this context, peace—contrary to what is promoted—seems to be a strategically amoral option.

Peace is not surrender, but instead is a smart management of time. It is the space in which one can rebuild the human being, restore awareness, and invest in education, knowledge, economy, and technology. True power is not built only in battlefields, but in universities, laboratories, factories, and think tanks.

Countries that understood this equation did not abandon their rights; rather, they postponed confrontation until they possessed the means. On the other hand, countries that rushed into confrontation without a solid foundation paid hefty prices and gained nothing but further dependency and exhaustion.

In conclusion, true heroism today is not in death, but in conscious survival. It is not in raising slogans, but in understanding the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. In an era where wars are waged remotely, and battles are decided in decision-making centers before reaching the field, building the human being becomes the most important battle… and everything else is just details.