The narrative of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz provides a chillingly accurate archetype for the mechanics of high-stakes manipulation. In the emerald halls of the Wicked Witch, power is rarely exercised through personal exertion; instead, it is outsourced. The flying monkeys—those frantic, winged enforcers—do not act out of genuine malice or a self-authored agenda. They act because they have been ensnared by the charisma and terror of a narcissistic authority who demands they do her dirty work.
In the realm of modern psychology, this phenomenon has become a cornerstone for understanding coercive control. The “flying monkey,” in the context of personality disorders, is an individual drafted into the service of an aggressor. They become the proxies—the messengers, the smear-campaigners, and the shock troops—who perform the villainy so that the architect of that villainy can maintain a veneer of detachment. They are the instruments of a predator, convinced that their participation is either righteous or necessary, conveniently blinded to the fact that they are merely extensions of a pathological will.
When this psychological dynamic is transposed onto the stage of global geopolitics, the stakes shift from interpersonal destruction to the devastation of nations. History has shown that autocracy thrives on the enlistment of these proxies. The danger of a leader who treats international law as a disposable suggestion is not merely the potential for his own singular act of cruelty, but his capacity to turn an entire administrative and military machine into a swarm of flying monkeys.
The recent comments made by Donald Trump surrounding the threat to target civilian infrastructure—power plants, bridges, and desalination facilities—is a stark reminder of this danger. Under the laws of armed conflict, established to prevent the wholesale slaughter of non-combatants, such threats are not acts of statecraft; they are unambiguous indicators of war crimes. There is no nuance, no strategic justification, and no exception clause for the destruction of civilian lifelines.
The tragedy of the flying monkey is that they often believe their loyalty is a virtue, unaware that they are tethering their own moral legacy to an objective atrocity. Whether it is the horrific targeting of a school or the cold-blooded planning of infrastructure collapse, the chain of command does not offer a shield against individual accountability.
In the eyes of international law, the “just following orders” defence has long been discarded as a failed justification for barbarism. Every person within the apparatus of power—from the strategist drafting the target coordinates to the operator launching the missile—must confront the reality of their role. To act on behalf of a leader who demands the violation of these fundamental laws is to abandon the position of a professional soldier and adopt the role of the flying monkey.
Ultimately, history does not categorise crimes by the title of the man who ordered them, but by the impact on the victims. Those who facilitate these illegal threats, who normalise the destruction of civilian survival, are not merely bystanders. They are the architects of the tragedy’s execution. When the smoke clears and the international courts convene, the excuse of being a mere instrument will not obscure the truth: when one chooses to act as the wing of a predator, one shares fully in the weight of the blood on their talons.
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See also:
Worldwide Temple of Aurora 