Why Putin Won’t Quit
March 23, 2023
I recently came across a very interesting interview with Annie Duke, the author of the book ‘Quit’ (BBC Radio 4 – The Spark, Annie Duke and quitting.) Annie’s book is all about why people will not stop doing something or setting out to achieve an objective, even when they know that to keep going is the wrong thing to do, and the advice they are getting is to stop.
During the interview, Annie talked about the war between Russia and Ukraine. She is convinced that Putin will never give up. Her argument is that people don’t quit because they are protecting the investment that they’ve made up to that point. They take ownership of what they have done and they don’t want to waste the investment of time/money that they have made, (a sunk cost issue). Quitting also involves a self-judgement as a failure and people don’t like admitting that they have made mistakes and may be considered by others to be a quitter or a loser. There’s also a universal cultural bias against quitting, it’s not a heroic choice anywhere.
Another influence is a powerful bias to sustaining the status quo (something I wrote about in my post on the power of inertia The Most Important Force That Kills Change – ImPAct Consultants). People will cling to a negative situation, such as a bad relationship, because of the fear and the risk of losing the familiar…‘the devil you know’. After a person’s mind is ‘made up’, they are also reluctant to accept contradictory information or to accept that change is even needed at all. Military leaders may even be willing to put future lives at serious risk to avoid letting those who have already died be seen by their families as dying in vain. They don’t want to be put in the position of having to explain that. In Putin’s situation, even though most of the world does not support him, he also has the huge responsibility of the Russian National Identity on his shoulders.
As far as Annie Duke is concerned, there is no off-ramp for Putin, no choice that he will make to save himself. The only way that the war will end is if the Russian Army is defeated, or Putin is deposed or dies.
This discussion is especially interesting given that this is the 20th anniversary of the start of the war between Iraq and the US and UK. A recent BBC 4 program called BBC Radio 4 – Shock and War: Iraq 20 Years On is about how the war got started and its aftermath. George W. Bush was absolutely committed to going to war with Iraq, even though there was absolutely no evidence that Hussein had WMD capability. Bush gave him a deadline to turn over his weapons by a certain date or go to war. Hussein didn’t because he didn’t have any, he’d already destroyed them and he couldn’t prove a negative! The UK PM Tony Blair had committed to following Bush, whatever he decided. Neither had the courage to quit, and I think that the above explains why. These events led to our world of groups of terrorists and insurgents, and established a lack of trust in politicians and a lack of confidence in the state that continues to this day.
A similar situation was presented in a very moving CBC Gem program called Newfoundland at Armageddon (TV Movie 2016) – IMDb, about the destruction of the Newfoundland Regiment in 1916 and the terrible aftermath of the war on Newfoundland and its people. The British army General, Douglas Haig was told by his senior advisors that based on their intelligence the decision to proceed with a July 1st start to the battle of the Somme would be a disaster; but Haig was convinced that God was on his side and he ordered the go ahead anyway, with the infantry walking straight towards the barbed wire and machine guns, and the cavalry right behind. He wouldn’t quit, even in the face of all the negative information. The result was that there were 60,000 British casualties on the first day, including the near complete destruction of the 700 strong Newfoundland Regiment in the first 30 minutes. Canadian army head General Arthur Currie said that it wasn’t a battle, it was suicide, and he vowed to do better. He never lost a battle in WW1.
I understand that the WW1 Anglo-French campaign against Turkey at Gallipoli followed a similar path of very poor military leadership and decisions, resulting in the devastation of the French, British, Indian, Australian and New Zealand forces.
Coming back to Annie Duke and her astute observations about people’s reluctance to quit. She gives many interesting examples of situations that people have found themselves in where there was an illogical refusal to quit, causing death and damage to themselves and to others.
She makes an astute finding that people make different decisions when they are in the middle of a situation than when they are out of it. The choices they have when they find themselves in a difficult situation are to get out of the situation and stand aside from it, before making a decision, or to make a decision about how to manage a situation should it arise, and then stick to that decision, e.g., “If we haven’t got to the top by 3pm, we turn back”. Of course, as a management consultant I believe that it can also help to get well qualified outside advice and to take it. Mr Putin, I await your call.