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.
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.
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 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.
The biggest question is: What kind of business partner does the government want to be? They need the AI companies. The government's a superpower but here it's trying to jam a lot of policy. This reflects tension between government dependence on private AI firms and its desire to impose regulatory requirements through procurement mechanisms rather than traditional legislative channels.
I have been working in Ukraine since 2019, first as an active Green Beret advising in an official capacity, then after leaving that service, directing special operations on the ground and more recently carrying hard-won lessons back to NATO before they are forgotten or overtaken by the next news cycle.
Four days into this situation in the skies over Tehran, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said, 'We're not at war right now.' This was, rather, a 'very specific, clear mission-an operation.' Operation does seem to be the preferred word in government talking points, even as it encompasses assassinating an ayatollah, torpedoing an Iranian naval ship, blowing up fuel depots and a desalination plant, and losing the lives of (so far) eight American service members along the way.
I was giving these scenarios, these Golden Dome scenarios, and so on. And he's like, 'Just call me if you need another exception.' And I'm like, 'But what if the balloon's going up at that moment and it's like a decisive action we have to take? I'm not going to call you to do something. It's not rational.'
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
In the latest episode of IPWatchdog Unleashed, I had the opportunity to sit down with Ted Wood-a unique figure whose career spans military service, engineering and patent law. After spending time both in-house and at Am Law 100 firms, today Ted is Managing Partner of Wood IP. Our conversation, which took place August 8, was not only interesting and fun but a testament to the diverse pathways one can take to success, both in life and, specifically, in the engineering and patent law fields.
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.
I am using the word pragmatism in a specific sense. I am not speaking about being pragmatic as a political tactic; deciding what issues should be given priority and what battles to choose, or a willingness to compromise, or a recognition that there are limits to what can be accomplished at any time. I am writing now about pragmatism in a meaning closer to its philosophical origin in the writings of William James-that truth is not found in abstract principles or beliefs,
The Claude AI builder has frustrated the Pentagon by objecting to its systems being used for autonomous weaponry and the mass surveillance of US citizens. To cut to the heart of the debate, a defense official told WaPo, the Pentagon's technology chief posed an extreme hypothetical: would Anthropic let the military use Claude to help shoot down a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile?