Ever insightful, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico recounted a story in his opening remarks at his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which pretty well sums up the leading strategic problem faced by humanity today: The arrogant know-nothingness of Western leaders in general.
“This will probably make the media members laugh,” Fico remarked, “but I started telling your press secretary a story about a frog, or a toad. Occasionally, I have an impression that we in the European Union are like this toad that sits at the bottom of a well and does not see what is going on high on the surface. But the world has completely changed. Sometimes, I feel very disappointed to see the European Union, even though I have a lot of respect for it, unable to respond to what is happening around the world, and I do not understand some of the EU decisions.”
The frog in the well is an ancient Chinese metaphor for narrowmindedness. As TASS explained in a wire today: “The parable of the frog at the bottom of a well originates from Zhuangzi, a Taoist collection of stories written in the 3rd century BC. In it, a frog living in a well boasts to a sea turtle about his world, only to be humbled when the turtle describes the vastness of the ocean. In China, the story is still used to symbolize a narrow or limited outlook.”
