Boardroom Talk: A celebration, a reminder and some well intentioned advice for Cyril

Our Chief Happiness Officer sprung a pleasant surprise on me yesterday. She loves balloons, big numbers and celebrations. As you can see from the image below, she's also not a great fan of sugar, flour and other non-Tim-Noakes-approved substances. Hence the small cake..The CHO does a grand job. BizNews is a really happy place, one of the reasons for my generally upbeat perspective. Especially on South Africa, even when it comes to opining on our president. Cyril is no Mandela. But he's also no Zuma. In young democracies, leadership assessment is always a relative thing..___STEADY_PAYWALL___.What really confuses me about Ramaphosa, however, is his blind spot on Ukraine..After months of producing an eventually fluff-free audiobook of Anthony Butler's superb biography of CR, I know he enjoys reading. Also, a Lutheran upbringing provided a solid spiritual base. And he knows full well that if Vladimir Putin (and Zuma) had gotten their way, SA would have been bankrupted by the Russian nuclear deal..Given all this, the obvious question is why CR remains a Putin apologist. It's no small issue. As a president who polls at over 50% favourable, Cyril is the country's ultimate super-influencer. If he refuses to condemn Mad Vlad's invasion, so will millions of his countrymen. Occupants of boardrooms among them..That's no exaggeration. In the past couple weeks I've encountered a few people with considerable power and influence trotting out Putin propaganda. They swallow how Russia's 'special military operation' is a legitimate defensive war against supposed (Jewish-led) Nazis who rule Ukraine..So here's some advice or CR, his followers and those 71% of Russians who believe their leader is right to force Ukraine into his dismal empire. Hell will freeze over, but what the heck. If you don't hit the putt hard enough to reach the hole, it never goes in. Who knows, maybe this will help the penny drop..I suggest Putin apologists open Chapter Six of Moises Naim's classic from 2013, The End of Power. The book's thesis is power is shifting from brawn to brains; from behemoths to start-ups; from dictators to town squares. Chapter Six is sub-titled The Decaying Power of Large Armies. Excellent context for Ukraine today..Naim refers us to the work of Harvard scholar Ivan Arreguin-Toft who analysed 197 'asymmetric' wars since 1800. Asymmetric in that protagonists had vastly different sized militaries and populations – think Vietnam and the USA; Russia and Afghanistan..In the first 50 years of that period, Davids prevailed in just 11.8% of the conflicts. But technology balanced the scales through potency to smaller units (think 9/11 where Al Qaeda's project cost $60 000; the US's response $2trn). During the half century from 1950, smaller forces defeated Goliaths a stunning 55% of the time..Russia itself has some first-hand experience of such failures. Most embarrassing of which came after the Soviet Union collapsed and rebels in tiny Chechnya (pop: 1.5m) immediately agitated for independence. This Muslim-dominant region took the opportunity to formalize resistance against Russian rule that goes back two centuries..In response, Russian president Boris Yeltsin applied brute force, systematically bombing Chechen towns block-by-block, reducing them to rubble. The campaign killed tens of thousands of Chechen civilians. But rebels kept fighting and two years after the conflict started in 1994, Yeltsin signed a peace treaty and removed all Russian troops..Chechnya's hard won independence, however, only lasted three years. Yeltsin was succeeded on 9 August 1999 by Vladimir Putin, then a little known former KGB operative. Before the month had ended, Putin began the Second Chechen War, dispatching 80 000 troops to fight the 22 000 defenders..Seven months and 5 000 dead Russian troops later, a triumphant Putin flew into the wasteland that was the capital Grozny in a Russian fighter jet. He installed Kremlin-friendly Akhmad Kadyrov and after the warlord's assassination, replaced him with his 26 year old son Ramzan. The younger Kadyrov, now 45, still rules Chechnya, today the second poorest of Russia's 83 provinces..How did Putin defy the David v Goliath odds and, second time around, subjugate the Chechens? Naim writes: "The 'success' of an autocratic Russia's savage tactics in Chechnya is a bloody example of what it takes for superior fire-power to win today over a tenacious, if militarily weaker adversary.".In other words, Goliaths can only guarantee victory in asymmetric wars by applying brutality in the Stalin/Hitler/Mao mould. When informed of this, Naim adds, citizens of modern states won't countenance such brutality. That makes it imperative for invading Goliaths to control all information flowing to citizens. As in Russia today..From the other side, Ukrainians are fully aware of the parallels with Chechnya. They fully understand Putin's motives and intentions. Independent polls – and their national response – shows over 90% of them would rather die than allow their children to become vassals to Russia's president-for-life (22 years and counting…..)..Our role as South Africans? Simply, before recycling Putin's word-puke, take responsibility for educating ourselves on his well-exposed playbook. And, like other civilized nations, see the motivation for Russia's block-by-block destruction for what it is. Especially those apologists who occupy offices in the Union Buildings..More for you to read today:.Rugby's radical plan for new global competition with grand final every two years. Exclusive to The Times of London and behind a paywall, but worth the subscription. Leading unions, incl SA, NZ and Aus, meet in Dublin today to create a global 'Nations Championship' to be held every second year.In defence of Tucker Carlson's stance on South Africa. Politicsweb editor Dr James Myburgh says the NYT got the farm murder/EWC issue completely wrong in its attack on the Fox News host..From Quora…..Putin dies and goes to hell, but after a while, he is given a day off for good behavior.So he goes to Moscow, enters a bar, orders a drink, and asks the bartender:-Is Crimea ours?-Yes, it is.-And the Donbas?-Also ours.-And Kyiv?-We got that too.Satisfied, Putin drinks, and asks:-Thanks, how much do I owe you?-5 euros..JOIN OUR NEW WINE CLUB.The BizNews Wine Shop has launched a new R15k a year membership option where curator Carrie Adams takes care of your annual wine supplies, manages your cellar and stocks it monthly with carefully selected favourites. You'll also be invited to a quarterly wine tasting at the BizNews HQ (first one tomorrow). Click here.

Boardroom Talk: A celebration, a reminder and some well intentioned advice for Cyril

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