Politics & Power Quote by Friedrich Durrenmatt

A superpower doesn’t survive disaster by denying it; it survives by rewriting the scoreboard. Duerrenmatt’s line has the cool cruelty of someone who understood how modern states metabolize embarrassment: not by avoiding failure, but by converting it into narrative. The word “afford” is doing the dirty work. Military debacle isn’t framed as tragedy or mistake; it’s an expense to be covered, a loss that can be balanced if the political returns are high enough.

The subtext is a primer on legitimacy. “Major power” implies a state with enough institutional muscle, media reach, and diplomatic leverage to launder defeat into something palatable at home and negotiable abroad. Bodies and broken equipment become symbols, and symbols can be managed. The trick is that the public rarely consents to loss on its own terms; it consents to loss when it can be billed as purpose. A retreat becomes “strategic.” A stalemate becomes “containment.” A failure becomes “proof” of resolve.

Duerrenmatt, writing out of Cold War Europe’s anxious shadow, wasn’t offering a cynical quip for its own sake. He’s pointing at the machinery that turns violence into policy: elections, alliances, press conferences, and the addictive story of national mission. The line works because it refuses the comforting separation between battlefield and parliament. It suggests that military outcomes don’t end wars nearly as often as political stories do - and that “victory” is frequently a costume thrown over wreckage so power can keep moving without admitting it bled.