Philosophy
fromPsychology Today
1 day agoWhen Leaders Go to War, Their Psychology Goes With Them
Narcissistic leaders often emerge due to fragile egos, leading to decisions that prioritize self-preservation over the well-being of others.
Retired Army Special Forces officer Mike Nelson criticized Hegseth's rhetoric, stating, 'That's a necessary end to achieve goals through military force - you have to kill people to achieve them. That's not the end. It's a weird obsession with death for the sake of it.'
The economics are hard to ignore. Shooting down a drone with AeroVironment's LOCUST laser system costs less than $10, using just two to five seconds of laser energy. Compare that to the interceptor missiles currently used against Iranian drone swarms, which cost orders of magnitude more and are in short supply across allied arsenals.
The conduct of War is, therefore, the formation and conduct of the fighting. If this fighting was a single act, there would be no necessity for any further subdivision, but the fight is composed of a greater or less number of single acts, complete in themselves, which we call combats, as we have shown in the first chapter of the first book, and which form new units.
So we've gone from identifying the target to now coming up with a course of action, to now actioning that target, all from one system. This is revolutionary. We were having this done in about eight or nine systems where humans were literally moving detections left and right in order to get to our desired end state, in this case closing a kill chain.
When the user asks "What enemy military unit is in the region?" the AIP Assistant guesses that it's "likely an armor attack battalion based on the pattern of the equipment." This prompts the analyst to request a MQ-9 Reaper drone to survey the scene. They then ask the AIP Assistant to "generate 3 courses of action to target this enemy equipment," and within moments, the assistant suggests attacking the unit with either an "air asset," a "long range artillery," or a "tactical team."
Lead without authority. You may not have direct reports, yet you shape architecture, quality and the roadmap. Your leverage comes from artifacts, reviews and clear standards, not from title.I started by publishing a lightweight architecture template and a rollout checklist that the team could copy. That reduced ambiguity during design and cut review cycles by nearly 30 percent
Snipers often discover a weapon's true potential only after it leaves the range and enters combat. Dust, cold, heat, and chaos expose weaknesses, but sometimes they reveal strengths no one planned for. Across multiple wars, certain sniper systems proved tougher, more accurate, and more versatile than expected, allowing operators to push ranges and missions far beyond the original design brief. Here, 24/7 Wall St. is taking a closer look at sniper systems that exceeded expectations in combat.
In 2017, Bjorn Mannsverk's phone rang. A year before, what was meant to be a special 100th anniversary for Bodo/Glimt ended in heartbreak as the Norwegian club were relegated from the top flight. A fresh approach was needed to get the club back on track. Having been stationed in Bodo before in his role as a fighter pilot with the Royal Norwegian Air Force, Mannsverk was familiar with the town, but not the football club.
Infantry once relied on numbers to solve uncertainty. When soldiers could not see or hit targets precisely, the answer was more troops and more fire. Sniper technologies quietly overturned that logic. By extending range, improving accuracy, and increasing awareness, they allowed small teams to dominate space once controlled only by massed formations. Precision replaced presence, and patience became a battlefield advantage. Here, 24/7 Wall St. is taking a look at the sniper technologies that totally changed the game.
Some aircraft succeeded even though they made life harder for the people flying them. They demanded constant attention, punished mistakes, and left little margin for error. Instead of relying on forgiving design, these platforms forced crews to compensate through skill, planning, and coordination. Over time, combat proved that the human element was the decisive factor behind their success. Here, 24/7 Wall St. is taking a closer look at these aircraft that embodied the human factor.
Number one is speed takes priority over perfection. We can iterate to get to operational capability. And the second is that early soldier feedback is critical in order to make sure we're getting the right technology for the future fight, and then we want to be able to prove the demand signal before we spend big dollars on programs.
On paper, many of the world's most famous weapons looked like reliable successes. In practice, desert sand, jungle humidity, and arctic cold often had other ideas. Systems that performed well in testing or early combat sometimes broke down once environmental stress became unavoidable. Here, 24/7 Wall St. is taking a closer look at how the environment, not enemy fire, can quietly expose limits that designers never fully anticipated.
Though the 83-year-old (who will turn 84 in two weeks) is rarely spotted in the Capitol these days, his vocal opposition to President Donald Trump on a myriad of issues is louder and more present than ever when deemed useful for the motivated liberal press. For instance, McConnell was quoted far and wide last month after he criticized Trump's desire to acquire Greenland, a move the Kentuckian suggested would "incinerate" the threadbare alliance that remains between the United States and NATO.
As a veteran of the war on terror, I have spent the past year watching Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers expand their operations across the country on a heretofore unprecedented scale and with a new faux-military bearing. From equipment to weapons to tactics, ICE and other immigration enforcement bodies want to be seen as combat forces carrying out their missions.
The US Army's biggest AI gamble may not be on autonomous weapons, but instead whether Silicon Valley software can tackle the service's most tedious and, more often than not, grueling administrative jobs. Think less uncrewed aircraft and more behind-the-scenes tasks like recruiting, equipment maintenance, and endless gear inventories. Through a mix of new tools, redesigned workflows, and data integration, logisticians