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In real life, "leaderlessness" simply allows the loudest voices, the most charismatic, the most manipulative, and the most threatening, to dominate and intimidate everyone else — with no accountability at all.

While President Obama is certainly correct in saying that "Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace," exactly how it may do so is more complicated than the president implies. In fact, the Russians may have strong legal arguments that any such right under international law was wrongly asserted in this instance.