Why are modern leaders such cowards?

This

Its much easier now to just fucking use smart missles and kill leaders.

If the war isn't about their power, but about a cause more important than anyone's life and they're willing to send thousands to their death, why not themselves?

I'm pretty pretty sure 99.99% of ancient/medieval leaders didn't really get into battle.

man fug
>(you)

Concurred.

In order for the leader to stay alive, he would have to be disguised as a regular grunt.

Which would completely defeat the purpose of having a leader in the field to begin with.

Cowardly non-whites sure didn't yes. And when they did it was to oversee the battle. As soon as the odds didn't turn into their favour, they fled, like Darius.

Because they can best serve that cause by using their leadership skills, rather than as a common soldier? Have you ever heard of the division of labour?

> When was the last time a president or a prime minister or any head of state for that matter joined his men in the field?
Salvador Alende was killed in action during coup d'etat, if this counts.

Or we create battle mechs that can survive them then shit can get real.

Muhammad al-Badr probably the last one who legitimately fought in war.

Because a country has only one available leader at any given moment and if he dies the country goes into uproar right? You must be a non american to have such a sensitive government.

>480x640
I mean I still fell for it and read your post, but fuck (you) post something bigger next time.

>Joining the troops on the front sounds like a good idea to keep morale up!

I love how Veeky Forums glorifies extraversion and lifting, and all things alpha, yet when it comes down to putting those qualities to use and putting your life on the line, it's smart to hide in the corner, be 'pragmatic', and let the battle rage on without you.

>puppets of foreign countries
>not cowards
The Cold War was a mistake.

It actually does.
It's risky, but it changes history.
You know, the thing you people will never belong to because you're all useless normie pussy chasers and nameless marketing dorks at best.
Enjoy being nothing more but a stat in world history.

> Enjoy being nothing more but a stat in world history.
History is a statistic, it isn't like being fluctuation really more meaningful in any sense.

Nice rationalization for being irrelevant.
How many mediocre 6's did you score this week?

there is a fine line between bravery and stupidity

I thought life was all about taking risks?
I guess the only risk you people think exists in life and that needs to be overcome is approach anxiety.

Because people don't really give a shit about martial/masculine virtues any more. I think we've become so saturated in cynical materialism that appeals to romanticism wouldn't even register for most people. I mean, just look at the reactions in this thread. Valor is for rubes, the smart people get the most they can for them and theirs, for the least amount of effort possible.

> Nice rationalization for being irrelevant.
Not everybody who is relevant goes into a pages of history to became self caricature of self for a quick public amusement.

Because logistics and management wins wars now, while field commanders win the battles. War has changed from singular encounters to widespread fronts that push and pull, and need to be balanced to ensure proper management and supply of war material and manpower.
People don't criticize Eisenhower for not being directly on the front, they praise his strategic though

ITT: self-preservation is somehow smart

Go post some Stirner memes on Veeky Forums you useless navel gazers.

why are you attacking a strawman
in modern warfare there is absolutely nothing the presence of the country's leader could do
therefore there is no point in them being on the battlefield

>War has changed

War never changes.
How many vets return home hating their government? You can't keep sending these men to useless wars for your own gain while sitting back at home never paying any price.
A commander-in-chief on the battlefield would greatly change that.
But I guess we're gonna keep on tapping this shit until it's exhausted.

Except you can.

Do you really think tanks have steering wheels

Turns out, having the guy in charge who knows what is going on and where everyone needs to be, right in the middle of a situation where people specifically want to kill him, is a bad idea.

...

>high up in the skies fighting against sandniggers with no air defense

Yeah, how brave.

(you)

Leo 2s have half wheels for steering i believe.

Leading a country is not the same as leading a military. Think of how much better Germany would have done in World War 2 if Hitler wasn't such a control freak. Also, the world has changed making open conflict more costly. You didn't have the alliances like you do now across the world as well as the interconnected economies.

Its not that so much as a commanders responsibility is to manage the army. It is difficult to manage the army from the front, it is best to remain in a position where you have the best access to the most information and can communicate with those fighting the best. Good generals do take risks, but in different ways from a typical foot soldier.

the issue is not one of cowardice, so much as the changing nature of war, Command of large forces requires some distance from the battlefield and normally a headquarters of some sort, and a leaders role is to be the guiding intelligence of that force not leading from the front where they can be readily killed, thats what junior officers are for. a senior commander can exert a far greater influence over the course of a battle commanding from a safe distance rather than right in the front line

incidently most senior officers were at some point junior officers and willing to risk their lives so cowardice isnt the right description for them.

but for a modern commander to try to lead from the front is normally a bad thing, Redvers buller showed this well enough during the Boer war, trying to go forward and help with a single battery rather than excercising oversight over the whole affair

as for heads of state leading armies or joining their men in the field the belgian and serbian leaders did in ww1 but most heads of states in democracies either have little or no military training

saucee plox

democratic leaders aren't as much leaders as they are readily exchangeable figureheads for the will of the masses

why would you want to go into battle risking your life when you're some guy who begged people to let you pretend to run the country for a few years in exchange for creating more jobs or some banal shit like that

the president doesn't even live in his own house or palace, which really should tell you something about the role he plays

islamist fundamentalist leader usually still fought on the frontline, which is why most of them died. pic related is a recent example.

>Leader fighting on the front lines.
>They die.

Because the Battle of Cunaxa happened.
>be Xenophon
>join up with around ten thousand other Greek hoplites to fight for a Persian prince that helped Sparta conquer your city so he can usurp his brother cause your friend convinced you to
>you are to march from Greece deep into Mesopotamia
>the Prince and the Spartan expedition leader keep arguing about how the formations are gonna be like cause the Prince wants the hoplites in the center while the Spartan general wants them on the right flank cause of the phalanx having each shield in the left hand and they were afraid that they would end up undefended
>they decide to go with the Spartan strategy
>battle begins
>greek phalanx is crushing the opposition marching all the way to the end of the battlefield and doing a U-turn back again with only 2-3 wounded slaughtering thousands in the process
>literally cannot lose
>as they come back the Persian general loyal to the Prince tells them that he has died
>apparently he decided to mount a head-on charge with his vanguard right into his brothers Royal guard just so he could be the one to claim the kill
>so now you are stuck here in the middle of Mesopotamia on a battlefield where the enemy is fleeing and the guy whom put the entire gig together ended up getting speared by his brothers guardsmen, so you have no claimant to the throne
>even offer the position of King of Persia to the General and say that you will keep fighting, but he turned them down cause "muh royal bloodline"
>what do you do?
>you march on home while being harassed by mountain people, with no food, no allies and even end up in trap where most officers end up killed
>but still managed to write a good book about it and sell it on the market of Athens

>Training for combat your whole life and Riding in full plate with your elite guard thru hordes of unwashed untrained
pesants with only risk being captured and ransomed in mere weeks
vs
>Geting shot at

>Training for combat your whole life and Riding in full plate with your elite guard thru hordes of unwashed untrained
pesants with only risk being captured and ransomed in mere weeks
vs
>Geting shot at

automatic weapons

Im not saying this board is usually not shit but even so this thread is patethic at best. Op has to be underage

Prince William and Harry both got stuck in with the wars there.

Harry was a very keen soldier allegedly and had to be taken off the line when the tabloids printed he was fighting.

To answer OP probably when accurate guns and especially artillery meant to skill and armour didn't increase an individuals odds in battle. In modern war you more often than not never know you died.

They often do.

Because for the first time (for most of the world) modern leaders scale of leadership oversees a vast network of governing organs that it would be stupid to focus on one just for the sake of appearing like a "hands on leader."

In addition, Modern Warfare has forces spread out over a big fucking area as opposed to primitive armies passing messages to each other via written word or visual/audio signals.

You want early examples of this? Very Large Empires. Not Conquest """Empires"" like Napoleon or Steppenegro empires, but long lasting functioning state entities with highly organized bureaucracies. The Emperors of Rome and China rarely led military campaigns themselves. Meanwhile Kings with their manlet states do.

Is Charles V the last European leader to have gone to war, apart from Napoleon?

Didnt the Spanish capture the King of France in one of the Italian wars?

Not that guy, but if a leader thinks his/her reason for going to war is so righteous and so important that they're willing to send thousands to their deaths, surely they should be one of those thousands?
If they truly thought that their cause was worth the risk of peoples lives then shouldn't they be out there fighting for the cause?

This happened recently with that kurdish high rank officer in Ross Kemp's documentary "The Fight Against ISIS". The man died from the headshot from the same ISIS sniper in that docu too.

Because that's fucking retarded

>The Emperors of Rome and China rarely led military campaigns themselves

There were a bunch of soldier emperors, mostly because the legions were where the power truly lied. They just didn't conquer large territories, they were mostly engaged with protecting against raiding tribes and squabbles with the Parthians and Persians, and of course the occasional civil war.

>occasional civil war
>occasional
Whew.

Probably because they believed their cause was worth that much, they'd want to do what was best to advance it, which they could better do by actually leading rather than throwing their life away

>I love how Veeky Forums glorifies extraversion and lifting, and all things alpha
Who does? You must have been browsing too many normie boards.

>When was the last time a president or a prime minister or any head of state for that matter joined his men in the field?

napoleon III was commanding at sedan and was captured, and george II of england commanded at dettingen

and many eurpoean leaders had gone to war before becoming leaders

>Veeky Forums
>Normie Boards

I just realized how insane Mexico and Latin American 19th Century Republics were having presidents present as battlefield commanders.

You can't imagine that shit on US presidents.

That's because US presidents are far too important to take a stupid risk like that.

Learn English.

Now I want to see Maximinus bare-knuckle fight Mehmed II.

>"Who's Rome now, huh? Who's Rome now?"

Muh_Julian_the_Apostate.ptsd

Fox News won't tell you this

Simon De Montfort had a hardcore as fuck death.

>/soc/
>not a normie board
???

Roosevelt would probably do that in a heartbeat

Idiot. Who do you kill first in a M&B battle?

Pros and cons of leading

pro: glory and troop morale

cons: the entire state could collapse and war will be lost if the commander dies.

Basically we're not fucking idiots any more.

>some women throw you rocks
>hardcore death

The so called caliph doesn't tho.

>no airdefence
every fucking sandnigger and his camel have access to cheap russkie/chink MANPAD's now