Month: September 2023

Gillard’s personal decision UN vote! · 3 December 2012

Paul Kelly wrote (1 December, The Australian) that Julia Gillard’s insistence that Australia vote against UN recognition of Palestine’s non-member state observer status was a stark demonstration of her will to dominate and tenacious determination to impose her authority. He writes that we are now witnessing a psycho-political drama.

Kelly is right, but there may be more to it than he suggests!

Troy Bramston wrote (29 November, The Australian) that few can understand why she so trenchantly held the view that it must be a no vote. She was so fixated on no that she was all at sea in understanding the opposition to her own decision.

Dennis Shanahan and David Crowe reported (28 November, The Australian) a “very, very tense 12 hours is which Gillard came perilously close to losing the leadership” before she capitulated.

So, why was she so determined?

My view is that while Gillard wants to dominate those around her (as Kelly notes), she also desperately wants the approval of other authority figures. Who these other figures are, we can only guess. (Clearly, her late-father was one of these.)

I suspect that Gillard gave personal assurances to various figures (maybe Barrack Obama and/or senior members of the Australian Jewish community) about how Australia would vote. These assurances were essentially based on her psychological need for approval rather than on any serious consideration of what was good policy.

Contrary to what Peter Hartcher wrote (1 December, The Sydney Morning Herald), Gillard is not full of confidence and self-belief. Her displays are features of both conscious acting (with no children to distract her she has, over the years as a totally focused political performer, perfected the art) and unconscious cognitive dissonance and in the particular case of the UN vote, she was all at sea as she tried to avoid coming to grips with the disparity between party room facts and her notions and commitments about a “no” vote.

For more about Gillard’s basic psychology, read Julia Gillard: psychological profile shown in the left-side column on this page. (https://www.jeffschubert.com/index.php?id=100)

Gillard craves Obama · 26 June 2010

Soon after deposing Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister of Australia in a Labor Party coup, Julia Gillard rang Barak Obama and, among other things, assured him that she supports the present strategy in Afghanistan.

At a press conference she related that she also told him that “we are close as nations, we are in an enduring strategic alliance, we are close as peoples. We have fought together around the world, and we continue to fight together in Afghanistan”.

There was some politics in this as the majority of Australians particularly older people support the American alliance. However, a majority of Australians oppose the current deployment of about 1,500 soldiers in Afghanistan.

The present strategy in Afghanistan is also increasingly being questioned. This piece from the 24 June edition of The New York Times puts it in a nutshell:

If there continue to be problems (in Afghanistan), a senior official said, the debate will intensify between those who say we have to stick with it (the present strategy) and those who say we (have) lost momentum and we have to go to Plan B. Plan B would be some combination of Mr. Biden’s stripped-down counterterrorism strategy including a hard deadline for American withdrawal and an accelerated effort by Mr. Karzai’s government to reconcile with the leaders of the Taliban insurgency, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

So why did Gillard support an Afghanistan strategy that is being increasingly questioned?

The answer has several layers.

In general, Australian prime ministers are particularly craven to US presidents. In part this is because it feels good to be on close terms with the most powerful man in the world, and it makes a good impression on others. But there is also an apparent belief among Australian policy makers that supporting the US—no matter what it does—is good for preserving the Australia-US relationship, and thus the security of Australia. Gillard’s background and government experience suggest that she knows very little about the world outside Australia and has little ability to rationally consider such issues as Afghanistan. So she said what she has been told to say—and possibly what her natural instincts suggest.

But, there is also a broader issue.

There is often a general tendency for leaders in many fields to try to gain the respect of other leaders by showing their strength with strong statements. Sometimes the relationship being sought is one of fear, but it is just as often one of approval. Nuance is sacrificed in this process.

When the relationship being sought is one of approval you may see television images of two leaders walking unaccompanied in a garden discussing issues such as war, world economic and financial conditions etc. Even though such walks are really undertaken for the media, they increase the likelihood that the nuances of complex issues are debased in the private conversation of very politically acute but not necessarily very intellectually insightful people aimed at reaching an accord.

One danger is that instincts for accord can mutually reinforce misguided policy thinking. Each political leader, uncertain that what they are doing is right, because of their limited knowledge of or an inability to handle complex issues, comes away from the discussion feeling that he/she must be right because the other leader—presumably acting, at least in part, on their own expert advice agrees with them. Neither recognizes the possibility that the words of the other are really soothing words of emotional support rather than well-thought out views.

The danger is especially acute when one of the leaders is craven to the other. Tony Blair and John Howard with George Bush on Iraq are in my view cases in point. Julia Gillard, lacking the relative international knowledge and sophistication of Kevin Rudd, may be in a similar relationship with Barack Obama.

Gillard, as a new leader and prime minister, had an opportunity to hold back on strong comments on the Afghanistan strategy. She, with the help of her advisers, would then have been in a better position to consider developments and to offer independent advice if it becomes brutally clear that a Plan B is needed.

Given the changing world she could have also been more sophisticated in her choice of words about the Australia-US alliance. But then, phrases such as we have fought together around the world imply an emotional commitment that Australia will keep doing it whatever the US strategy!

Gillard, it seems, will aim to please and her leader words to the other leader will remain craven and foolish.

Putin and Australia · 30 September 2011

Vladimir Putin wants Russia to get the benefits of a stronger and more modern economy, while Australia under Julia Gillard wants to get the benefits of economic growth in Asia.

But like Putin, Australia under Julia Gillard, is somewhat afraid of the uncertainty that comes with economic change and wants to maintain the political/security status quo. The fears of both are rooted in the past. The fear of Putin is rooted in the chaos of the 1990’s. The fear of Australia under Gillard is rooted in the Asia-Pacific area fighting of the Second World War.

Thus, Putin wants to maintain the United Russia political movement as the preeminent force in Russia with himself guiding the way. Australia under Gillard wants to maintain the US as the preeminent force in Asia with itself offering influential advice.

Both Putin and Gillard are pursuing aims that ultimately will fail because of their contradictory nature. This does not mean that these contradictory policies cannot co-exist for some time. It means only that in the current circumstances neither aim is likely to be more than moderately successful in the presence of the other.

The possible contradictions ultimately involved in the review of Australia’s relations in the Asia Century to be conducted by Ken Henry (a former Secretary of the Treasury), and the review being conducted by Allan Hawke and Ric Smith (two former secretaries of the Defence), have been highlighted by Graeme Dobell of the Lowy Institute.

The Henry review will be asked to assess:
The current and likely future course of economic, political and strategic change in Asia, encompassing China, India, the key ASEAN countries as well as Japan and the Republic of Korea;
The domestic economic and social opportunities and challenges of the Asian Century for Australia;
Opportunities for a significant deepening of our engagement with Asia across the board, including in the economy, science and technology collaboration, clean energy, education, business-to-business and people-to-people links and culture;
The political and strategic implications of the Asian Century for Australia;
The role of effective economic and political regional and global cooperation.

Note the emphasis on the word “economic”!

The Hawke and Smith report on the Asia Pacific has been asked to assess:
The rise of the Asia Pacific as a region of global strategic significance;
The rise of the Indian Ocean rim as a region of global strategic significance;
The growth of military power projection capabilities of countries in the Asia Pacific;
The growing need for the provision of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief following extreme events in the Asia Pacific region;
Energy security and security issues associated with expanding offshore resource exploitation in Australia’s North West and Northern approaches.

Note the absence of the word “economic”!

Dobell says that the agenda for the (Hawke and Smith) Review is all about moving more of Australia’s military to the north and west of the continent and aligning Australia with the US military Posture Review.

He further notes that not all parts of Canberra talk in exactly the same tongue. Treasury might be comfortable with the (term) Asian Century, but Defence wants the (term) Asia Pacific because it explicitly embraces the US.

Note the use of the word because!

So there is every chance, in my view, that Hawke and Smith may turn out to be somewhat like Putin — “because” their emotional fears will mostly negate analytical ability (and Putin has as much of this analytical capacity as Hawke and Smith).

Dobell says that Gillard put her own language, too, to the China-US conundrum when surveying what she called a vast landscape of change:

…much is written on the potential tensions inherent in our economic relationship with China and our Alliance ties. I’m a decision-maker, not a commentator, and I don’t by nature reach for the jawbone or the megaphone. But I do say this: The Government’s approach comprehends the challenges and risks. Certainly, these relationships will not manage themselves and we are far from complacent about them. But we are far from pessimistic too. Because there is nothing in our Alliance relationship with the United States which seeks to contain China, because a growing, successful China is in the interest of every country in the region, including our own and because our national strength, and that of our ally, is respected in the region and the world.

What!

..there is nothing in our Alliance relationship with the United States which seeks to contain China?

The Chinese will not be so stupid as to believe these words of Gillard. But large sections of the Australian population will be just as large sections of the Russian population will believe Putin when he uses his own fears to justify counterproductive policies.

And then the words because our national strength, and that of our ally, is respected in the region and the world!

My jaw dropped! Can Gillard possibly be so stupid? These are exactly the things that China wants to have for itself and China will think the US does not want China to have.

A smart Ken Henry will think beyond “economics” — but, in reality given his knowlege base as a numbers orientated economist, he may too easily be overwhelmed by the superficial arguments of the fearful conceptual minds who live in the past (quoting flawed historical examples) rather than the future.

For more on Russia see my writings at: www.russianeconomicreform.ru/

That both individuals and countries can ultimately be guided by the same fears and hopes that override rational analysis should not be a surprise, because the latter consists of the former. But this basic fact seems to be so often ignored in analysis of international relations.

As well intentioned as Putin and Gillard are, neither is psychologically well-equiped to lead a country living in the face of massive change. Because of their fears, neither has much vision beyond that of “control”— either of themselves or their surroundings.

George Bush, Stalin, Mao and history reading leaders · 24 November 2010

According to a recent article by Ben MacIntyre in The Times, George Bush’s memoir indicates that in the course of a single year, 2006, in competition with his adviser Karl Rove, he read 95 books, totalling 37,343 pages. That is more than one book every four days, and more than 100 pages every day. Bush liked to get eight hours’ sleep a night. So if he reads at the average rate of 60 pages an hour, we arrive at a startling conclusion: roughly one-tenth of the time Bush spent awake as president he was buried in a book. Most of the president’s books were about history, predominantly historical biography.

The Times article continued: During that single year he read biographies of Abraham Lincoln (two of the 14 he read in office), Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, King Leopold, William Jennings Bryan, Genghis Khan, Lyndon Johnson, Andrew Carnegie and Huey Long. He read Andrew Roberts’ 800-page History of the English-Speaking Peoples and histories of the Mayflower voyage and the Lincoln assassination. … References to history pepper the memoir.

Now, I seriously doubt that Bush read every word or was buried in all 37,343 pages as most history books contain large amounts of facts that are not essential to the core message (this will especially be the case if the reader is on the second or third, or 14th , biography). Nevertheless, the pace at which Bush claims to have read suggests as absence of pauses to significantly reflect on the relationship between what he had just read and what he had read in other books and the relationship to then current events. And, in my view, this absence of pause negates much of the purpose and value of reading history.

The Times quotes Bush (who majored at history at university), as saying that he drew strength from my faith, and from history. According to the article: Bush clearly sees the past in didactic terms, as a series of salutary examples, inspirations, turning points and touchstones: I know a lot of history. I know how lessons work. I hope people come to understand how history works. This is the view encapsulated by the philosopher-poet George Santayana: those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it. It assumes that the past offers a moral map, if only we can read it correctly.”

Bush is not the first leader to attempt to read history correctly in search of a moral map. In 1946 Josef Stalin criticized a new movie, Ivan the Terrible, Part Two, telling the director that changes must be made: Ivan the Terrible was very cruel. You can show he was cruel. But you must show why he needed to be cruel. The Yugoslavian politician, Milovan Djilas, who had close dealings with Stalin and his lieutenants from 1944, noted that in Stalin, certain great and final ideals lay hidden his ideals, which he could approach by molding and twisting the reality and the living men who comprised it.

So, Stalin had his own version of understand how history works and reading it correctly; and his own version of a moral map it was alright to be cruel if the end-result was good in the way that he understood such ideals!

Zhisui Li, Mao Zedong’s doctor, wrote that Mao turned to the past for instruction on how to rule. He identified with China’s emperors and his greatest admiration was reserved for the most ruthless and cruel. While Li wrote that morality had no place in Mao’s politics, he was talking about Mao’s means to an end. Mao like Stalin had his own sense of understand how history works and his own ideals. According to Li, Mao insisted on policies that no one else had ever imagined, dangerous, risky policies like the Great Leap Forward, the people’s communes, and the Cultural Revolution, all of which were designed to transform China presumably to an ideal end!

The Times article continued: There is a tendency, particularly in American political life, to seize on the past as if it offered clear and unequivocal guidance, simple instructions on ethics, leadership and personal behaviour.

But, this is how Stalin and Mao also viewed history. Stalin wrote in the margin of a biography of Ivan the Terrible: teacher teacher. Like Bush, Stalin and Mao chose to read history that tended to reinforce their existing views and predilections. They rarely read history that bolstered their understanding of other view-points.

The Times article continued: This (American) approach (to the past) tends to ignore the complexity and messiness of history and the intricate individuals that people the past in favour of heroes and villains, right and wrong, black and white. When asked to cite his historical influences, Bush cites Lincoln or Jesus Christ. … These are not so much historical references as badges of goodness. History is seldom neat and never simple. Its moral lessons are often obscure and even its most lauded figures flawed and contradictory. … If history teaches anything, it is that the past and the affairs of man are complex, uncertain and unpredictable.

Stalin and Mao also fell for the trap if glossing over the complexity of the past at the cost of not fully understanding the present. As Dr. Li wrote: Immersed as he was in Chinese history, and thus in the power struggles and political intrigues that were part of every court, Mao expected political intrigue within his own imperial court, and he played the same games himself. Even if aspirants to power told Mao the objective truth, he could not accept it because he saw conspiracies everywhere.

I once tried to interest an Australian political analyst in my book, Dictatorial CEOs & their Lieutenants: Inside the Executive Suites of Napoleon, Stalin, Ataturk, Mussolini, Hitler and Mao. His response was, Hitler was bad man, and that is all I need to know. It was the end of the discussion! Hitler indeed turned out to be bad, but this does not explain why millions followed him. They followed him because they thought he was good. The reality is that Hitler was more than simply a bad man, and to view him in this way almost guarantees the present being condemned to repeat the past.

The Times article continued: In the history that Bush tells, his story is clear-cut: a Manichean battle between good and evil, fought with history on his side. I admired Lincoln’s moral clarity, he writes.

Unfortunately, many admired Adolf Hitler for the same reason! Such moral clarity was also shared by the likes of Stalin and Mao.

Tudor Rickards has suggested that many people have a negative pre-conception of my book because they suspect that I am supporting, or promoting, the management practices of dictators. But, as Tudor understood, my intent was exactly the opposite I wanted to warn people about how easily it is to fall under dictatorial power! My book is about everything except moral clarity. My book is about reality! And the best way to avoid abuse of power is to avoid extreme moral clarity.

If people do not read a balanced account of the lives of such people as Napoleon, Stalin, Ataturk, Mussolini, Hitler and Mao, they will find it difficult to understand their attractions and thus avoid those attractions in the future. Then history is indeed condemned to be repeated.

Understanding Dictators like Gadhafi · 4 March 2011

Commenting on events in Libya, Jason Pack (St.Antony’s College, Oxford), who has had significant experience in Libya, recently wrote :

As policy makers the world over speculate about what Gadhafi will do next, they should look to the leader’s upbringing, psychology and ideology for clues. To get the true measure of the man and his motivations, one must see past the rambling demagoguery and YouTube parodies.

Pack wrote that after his bloodless coup d’etate in 1969, Gadhafi struck Westerners who met him as charismatic, confident and idealistic. Despite his brutality, Gadhafi, sees himself as a philosopher-king and is angry and bitter that his utopian vision has not been realized. He is prone to paranoid conspiracy theories about how outside actors have ruined his precious vision because they cannot afford to see his utopia succeed.

And, in conclusion, Pack wrote: Assured of his own righteousness, Gadhafi will fight to the bitter end with whatever trusted advisers and praetorian guards will stick by his side.

I do not know whether or not Pack’s assessments are correct, but I like his approach to the issue. Rather than simply saying that Gadhafi is a bad mad man, he has recognized that Gadhafi like all self-made dictators who have survived in power for a long time (in this case 40 years) has an idealistic side which attracts supporters.

When the writer Emil Ludwig asked Stalin why everybody in his country feared him, Stalin rejoined: Do you really believe a man could maintain his position of power for fourteen years merely by intimidation? Only by making people afraid?

Of course not!

Stalin like Hitler and Mao had ideals. The Yugoslavian politician, Milovan Djilas, who had close dealings with Stalin and his lieutenants from 1944, noted that in Stalin, certain great and final ideals lay hidden his ideals, which he could approach by moulding and twisting the reality and the living men who comprised it.

So, in my view Pack is being realistic. Such realism could also be applied to such people as Robert Mugabe and Fidel Castro.

But, there is another side to this. Just as many in the West fall into the trap seeing only bad in such dictators, they also fail to see that these idealistic traits can drive leaders of their own countries to cruelty and such leaders can attract many supporters.

Psychologically, I think that Tony Blair is the sort of personality who if had been born in Libya about the same time as Gadhafi could easily have become a Gadhafi.

And, many who have supported Blair over the years would even have been Gadhafi-type supporters.

Their sense of idealism and their own righteousness blinds them to their own cruelty in supporting suppressive regimes and countries.

Gustave M Gilbert, in his The Psychology of Dictatorship: based on an examination of the leaders of Nazi Germany, wrote about the ability of decent people to compartmentalize their thinking so that they can combine idealism with cruelty.

As a general principle . the normal social process of group identification and hostility-reaction brings about a selective constriction of empathy, which, in addition to the semi-conscious suppression of insight, enables normal people to condone or participate in the most sadistic social aggression without feeling it or realising it.

Many Germans and many Americans (in the case of their treatment of blacks) when confronted with these inconsistencies in their professed behavior as decent citizens, recognise the inconsistency intellectually, but still find it difficult to modify their behavior. Insight is not sufficient to overcome the deeply rooted social conditioning of feelings.

Gustave was writing about the internal workings of societies, and specifically countries. But, in the sense that the people of the world are also a society, the same psychological processes apply.

In my view, Blair and many others—despite all their idealism—have seen Arabs in the way described by Gilbert. So, what was Iraq all about? Blair simply wanted to be a hero of the sort his idealism imagined!

Psychology of Nazi Field-Marshal Keitel, George Bush & Hezbollah · 3 August 2006

When Admiral Canaris, head of German military intelligence, protested to Field-Marshal Keitel about Nazi brutality on the Russian-front, Keitel replied: These anxieties belong to the concept of chivalrous warfare. Here we are engaged in the destruction of an ideology. For this reason I approve of the measures and stand by them. Earlier, Keitel had signed a Decree on the Exercise of Military Jurisdiction, which said: For acts committed by members of the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) against enemy civilians, there is no obligation to prosecute, even when the act constitutes a military crime or offence.

Jon Alterman, Middle-East Program Director at the Washington based Center for Strategic & International Studies says that the Bush administration puts a lot of stock in the idea of moral clarity. They believe Hezbollah is full of bad people.

And, Field-Marshal Keitel, who was executed at Nuremberg for war crimes, was obviously a bad person! But was he really bad? And, is Hezbollah really full of bad people?

Keitel, Chief of the Wehrmacht Supreme Command Hitler’s most senior military man was not a rabid Nazi or an aggressive militarist. Gustave Gilbert, prison psychologist at the Nuremberg trials, described him as almost a Ferdinand the Bull type: Stripped of his military rank and power, Keitel revealed himself as an obsequious, gentle soul who had never really wanted to fight but had always longed to be a country squire.

General Halder wrote of Keitel: It was given to him to build bridges, to alleviate sources of friction, to reconcile enemies or at least to bring them closer He was a person of extreme diligence, literally a workaholic, of the highest conscientiousness in his field but always in a way that kept his personality out of it, so that he himself never stood out in a leading way.

Psychologist George Victor wrote that most of the people who carried out the Holocaust were reasonably normal. And those who helped, as were as those who knew and did not try to stop it, were ordinary people.

The case of Field-Marshal Keitel suggests that the world is much more complex than George Bush believes and, of course, much more complex than many in Hezbollah will believe.

Keitel was in most ways a normal man with admirable qualities. In different circumstances and times, he may have indeed been a gentle country squire. But like most normal people, Keitel’s insights and consequent actions were constrained by his own personality, his personal circumstances, and the environment in which he lived.

As a proud and loyal German (Prussian) military officer, he had little desire to understand people not in his own identification group; indeed, he went out of his way to avoid being placed in a situation which might require him to feel empathy with those in other groups. As a soldier, he believed in duty and in absolute obedience in carrying out orders.

As a soldier in World War I, he felt victimized by the Treaty of Versailles, which in his view like that of many Germans was caused by a stab in the back. In particular, he said, the flaming red torch (of socialism) flung out from the homeland had caused those immense, victorious battles to be fought in vain. Keitel became a willing tool of anyone who offered a way to avenge this.

Keitel allowed himself to be persuaded that this war was different: a (communist) ideology needed to be destroyed, and this meant that previously unacceptable brutal methods needed to be employed. (The Bush administration seems to have similar beliefs in relation to Hezbollah.)

While Keitel’s subservience to Hitler brought him promotions, prestige and wealth out of all proportion to his talents, he was a yes-man and a war criminal for psychological reasons: essentially for being quite normal. He lacked insight into and empathy with those not in his in-group; he sought vengeance for past injustices to his in-group and his broader society (in this case, his country); and, he was persuaded that the enemy this time was some-how different (ie ideological) and needed to be treated new (ie brutal) way.

Jon Alterman of CSIS has also said: I’m amazed how little they (radicals in the Middle-East) understand about American psychology. I’m also amazed at how little we understand their psychology. And ultimately, a lot of this is psychological.

Indeed! Hezbollah will contain many normal people who for reasons similar to that of Keitel will take up arms for their cause. If Bush administration and others are to defeat radicals in the Middle-East, they will need to recognize that they are mostly dealing with normal people albeit with their own psychological perspectives and circumstances. This requires dealing with nuances rather than moral absolutes.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has about as much psychological insight as Field-Marshal Keitel.

**Jeff Schubert’s book, Dictatorial CEOs & their lieutenants: the cases of Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Ataturk, Mussolini and Mao, will be released soon.

Rumsfeld and Stalin as Dictatorial CEOs · 15 April 2006

US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld seems to have some of the dictatorial personality characteristics of Stalin when it come to the management of his fiefdom.

Retired US General DeLong says that “dealing with Secretary Rumsfeld is like dealing with a CEO”: “When you walk in to him, you’ve got to be prepared, you’ve got to know what you’re talking about. If you don’t, you’re summarily dismissed. But that’s the way it is, and he’s effective.”

It sounds like DeLong may have adopted the approach of Politburo member, Lazar Kaganovich, who admitted, that when I go to Stalin, I try not to forget a thing! I so worry every time. I prepare every document in my briefcase and I fill my pockets with cribs like a schoolboy because no one knows what Stalin’s going to ask.

Indeed, DeLong may have given the same advice to his own subordinates as that given by Soviet General Kotliar to Colonel Starinov when the latter was called to see Stalin: Don’t get excited. Don’t think about disagreeing with anything. Comrade Stalin knows everything.

No doubt, when he wants, Rumsfeld has charm. As Sergo Beria, who as a young man had direct official dealings with Stalin, wrote: When he thought it necessary he was able to seduce a Field Marshal just as well as a young man. It was not enough for me to be obedient, I had to be completely with him.

Dictatorial CEOs make sure that they get subordinates who are “completely with” them. Retired US General Swannack, says that Rumsfeld makes sure that he gets the subordinates that he wants: If you understand what Secretary Rumsfeld has done in his time in the Pentagon, he personally is the one who selects the three-star generals to go forward to the president for the Senate to confirm.” Beria wrote that above a certain level in the hierarchy of Party and State Stalin appointed only individuals he knew personally. He sent for them from time to time and never ceased studying them. Before promoting a cadre he spent a long time analysing them. He had one unchanging rule: one can never be too suspicious.

This is not to say that such subordinates are necessarily incompetent. Beria wrote that Stalin had not raised many intelligent people to the rank of his closest associates because he feared that such would hinder his actions. But neither could he allow himself to choose only imbeciles if he wanted results.

Rumsfeld, suggested Retired US General Batiste, has other characteristics that are similar to Stalin: We served under a secretary of defense who didn’t understand leadership, who was abusive, who was arrogant, who didn’t build a strong team.”

Sounds like Rumsfeld wants to dictate from above! Thus, it is not surprising, as Retired US General Newbold wrote, that even though the Iraq war plan was “fundamentally flawed,” many senior officers “acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. “When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military’s effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction.”

Soviet Marshal Voronov wrote of Stalin’s excessive centralization: It not only robbed one of a great deal of time and prevented one from concentrating on the main thing, but it fettered the initiative of subordinates, slowed things down and lowered efficiency. Stalin could not tolerate the decision of even secondary matters without his knowledge.

In relation to Iraq, Swannack says that Rumsfleld has micromanaged the generals who are leading our forces there. Batiste says: “When decisions are made without taking into account sound military recommendations, sound military decision-making, sound planning, then we’re bound to make mistakes. When we violate the principles of war with mass and unity of command and unity of effort, we do that at our own peril.”

Cardinal Pell’s God and Hitler have a lot in common · 29 November 2010

Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, has said Mass to install the former Australian Defence Force chief General Peter Cosgrove as chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, saying:

‘’A minority of people, usually people without religion, are frightened by the future,’’ Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, said: “It’s almost as though they’ve nothing but fear to distract themselves from the fact that without God the universe has no objective purpose or meaning. Nothing beyond the constructs they confect to cover the abyss.’’

According to the Sydney Morning Herald (29 November), Pell said education was not enough to create a civilised society, that faith was necessary too. He cited the example of 20th century Germany, which he said was the best educated society in the world when Hitler became leader. We should not create an ‘’ideological apartheid’’ between faith and reason, Pell said.

Some extracts from my book, Dictatorial CEOs & their Lieutenants: Inside the Executive Suites of Napoleon, Stalin, Ataturk, Mussolini, Hitler and Mao, suggests that Cardinal Pell’s God and Hitler had a lot in common.

I wrote:

All CEOs benefit from the need of people to believe in someone who can take care of unfamiliar or scary issues, leaving them to get on with their daily lives and work. Sometimes belief in a mystical God fulfils this need, but often and sometimes concurrently this need is fulfilled by a Man: some individual who is perceived to be so special and unique that religious terminology is often used in reference to him.

While a CEO can achieve and maintain dictatorial power without being the Man, that power will be precarious because of its narrow base of discipline and reward that is, a narrow base of interest and fear. Being the Man adds emotion to the support base of the dictatorial CEO: what people want to believe and what they hope for blinds them to many realities, and often wilfully so; they became gullible, often to an extreme degree. What would otherwise be seen as good, is seen as very good; what would otherwise be seen as very bad, is seen as merely bad; logical connections between issues and events are dismissed in favour of more emotional responses; and the alternatives to the dictatorial CEO are regarded with excessive concern.

Those people in a country, or in any other organisation who believe in the Man provide not only a powerful general support base, but the well from which the successful dictatorial CEO draws many of his lieutenants.

As Mussolini put it, people do not want to rule, but to be ruled and to be left in peace. This is what attracted Speer to Hitler and the Nazi party in the early 1930s: My inclination to be relieved of having to think, particularly about unpleasant facts In this I did not differ from millions of others.

Aspiring and actual dictatorial CEOs exploit these desires. They know, as Hitler said, that the masses need an idol, and they encourage and promote this idea. In 1937, when Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana, had a birthday and wanted to take a ride on the new Moscow Metro, Stalin who rarely made public appearances decided to join the group in a special train. The passengers going to and from the other trains noticed Stalin and gave him ovations. One of Stalin’s group later described his reaction: He sort of said about the ovations given to him: the people need a tsar; that is, a person to whom they can bow low and in whose name they can live and work.

As use of the term a Tsar suggests, the Man is only one of several terms that can be used to convey the same sentiment; others, as we shall see, include Tribune and God himself.

Aspiring and actual dictatorial CEOs also know that this desire for someone special who can rule and deal with unpleasant facts particularly in times of organisational stress is so strong that a blind eye will often be turned to concerns about methods. As editor of the newspaper Popolo dItalia in 1917, Mussolini wrote that Italy needed a Man:

A man who has when needed the delicate touch of an artist and the heavy hand of a warrior. A man who is sensitive and full of will-power. A man who knows and loves people, and who can direct and bend them with violence if required.

Maybe this is Pell’s—and also Islamic extremists—view of God, Iraq and Afghanistan?

Brooks and Tett on policy psychology · 22 October 2012

David Brooks (writing in the The New York Times on 12 October) and Gillian Tett (writing in the Financial Times on 18 October) have each produced a useful article on the relationship of individual psychology (or personality) to the wider world of government policy although the articles do it by heading in different directions from essentially the same starting point.

The Brooks article suggests that not enough attention is presently paid to the effect of individual psychology (personality) on leadership decisions and thus on personality when choosing leaders. The Tett article relates individual psychology (personality) concepts to the whole populations of countries. Taken together, the articles act almost like a circle with the two directions eventually meeting each other and encompassing a lot of wisdom that is all too often overlooked when considering issues of public policy.

The motivation for the Brooks article seems to have been the US presidential election, while the motivation for the Tett article is the Euro-crisis and the effect of subsequent policies on the populations of countries such as Greece.

The US and Greece may seem to be almost different worlds, so it may be easier to explain what Brooks and Tett are each (in their own articles) on about and the connection between the two with the help of German and Russian examples in which the leadership and population issues can be more directly related to each other.

Tett wrote about the humiliation felt by a country’s population when it feels that something very unpleasant has been done to it by some other party. Leaving aside the issue of how justified these feelings of humiliation are, good examples are Germany in the period after the First World War (and the Treaty of Versailles) and Russia in the 1990s when the collapse of the USSR led many to feel that Russia’s economic and political chaos was the result of bad advice from the West which then turned it back and gloated at the result.

Tett’s article (essentially based on the work of Prof. Dennis Smith, a historical sociologist) suggests that the humiliation being forced on the national psychologies of Greece (and possibly Spain) could have quite pathological (read abnormal or diseased psychology) results. She does not say so, but at some level this pathology could be similar to that of Germany and Russia in the times I have mentioned.

Brooks does not go into this issue, but in situations of national pathology, the leaders that emerge are not likely to be those mostly driven by rational cognitive decision making on behalf of the population, but those whose own personalities will ultimately provide the best guide to the decisions that they will make. Here, we might think about Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin (although, I am not suggesting that Putin has the same degree of personal pathology as Hitler).

To some degree, the concepts covered in the Brooks and Tett articles might also be applied at the intra-country group level.

For example, the humiliation that Putin and Co. are willingly to attempt to inflict on the aspiring Russian middle class (for want of a better word) may result in some of the responses mentioned by Tett:

Typically, it occurs in three steps: first there is a loss of autonomy, or control; then there is a demotion of status; and last, a partial or complete exclusion from the group. This three-step process usually triggers short-term coping mechanisms, such as flight, rebellion or disassociation. There are longer-term responses also, most notably acceptance via escape or conciliation, to use the jargon or challenge via revenge and resistance. Or, more usually, individuals react with a blend of those responses.

But Tett also wrote that “Prof Smith believes, for example, that Ireland already has extensive cultural coping mechanisms to deal with humiliation, having lived with British dominance in decades past. This underdog habit was briefly interrupted by the credit boom, but too briefly to let the Irish forget those habits. Thus they have responded to the latest humiliation with escape (ie emigration), pragmatic conciliation (reform) and defiant compliance (laced with humour).”

Thus, the responses of the “national psychologies” of Ireland and Greece to their “humiliation” resulting from the Euro-crisis may exhibit significant differences.

The Russian “middle class” is certainly using Irish-style escape, pragmatic conciliation and defiant compliance to cope with its humiliation—- but in the longer term the coping mechanism could become more pathological. If this were to happen, I suspect Putin’s response would largely be determined by his personality.

The full Brooks article (which quotes psychoanalysts such as Karen Horney) and the full Tett article can be read below.

Merkel & Co should look at the H factor by Gillian Tett

This month, the guessing game is intensifying in Spain. But the issue is not just the size of the Spanish banks bad loans; the key uncertainty for investors is the mindset of the government of Mariano Rajoy. Will Madrid buckle under external pressure, and seek a bailout? Or will the domestic backlash be too great? In other words, what level of humiliation can the Spanish government, and people, bear?
For Dennis Smith, a prominent British historical sociologist, the question is a significant one across the eurozone. As he explained at a recent sociology conference, one way for policy makers and investors to make sense of the eurozone’s trajectory is to look at how humiliation operates in a psychological and cultural sense. After all, Prof Smith argues, one defining feature of the postwar European experience was that the union always presented itself as a post-humiliation regime. It was forged to heal the wounds of the second world war and thus, liberty and equality [were] highly valued as well as the spirit of fraternity. But since the financial crisis erupted, humiliation has returned to Europe on a large scale.
Inside nations, weak groups have suffered economic pain, and across the eurozone, weaker countries are being humiliated in a way that was taboo in the postwar post-humiliation period. Even more striking than this turnabout, Prof Smith argues, is the variety of responses from countries such as Greece and Ireland, as they reel from that humbling.
To understand this, it is worth noting that psychologists believe the process of humiliation has specific attributes, when it arises in people. Unlike shame, humiliation is not a phenomenon which is internally driven, that is, something that a person feels when they transgress a moral norm. Instead, the hallmark of humiliation is that it is done by somebody to someone else.
Typically, it occurs in three steps: first there is a loss of autonomy, or control; then there is a demotion of status; and last, a partial or complete exclusion from the group. This three-step process usually triggers short-term coping mechanisms, such as flight, rebellion or disassociation. There are longer-term responses also, most notably acceptance via escape or conciliation, to use the jargon or challenge via revenge and resistance. Or, more usually, individuals react with a blend of those responses.
Such psychology jargon may sound irritatingly abstract. But, just as investors can sometimes make sense of market crises by thinking about the five-stage cycle for processing human grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), looking at the psychology of humiliation can be revealing for the eurozone. Those periphery countries, after all, have experienced a loss of control, a demotion in relative status and exclusion from decision making processes (if not the actual euro, or not yet). And there are echoes of the classic humiliation coping strategies in the eurozone tale today.
National stereotypes are, of course controversial and dangerous. But Prof Smith believes, for example, that Ireland already has extensive cultural coping mechanisms to deal with humiliation, having lived with British dominance in decades past. This underdog habit was briefly interrupted by the credit boom, but too briefly to let the Irish forget those habits. Thus they have responded to the latest humiliation with escape (ie emigration), pragmatic conciliation (reform) and defiant compliance (laced with humour).
This tactic parades the supposedly demeaning identity as a kind of banner, with amusement or contempt, showing that carrying this label is quite bearable, says Prof Smith. For example, he says, Irish fans about to fly off to the European football championship in June 2012 displayed an Irish flag with the words: Angela Merkel Thinks We’re At Work. However, Greece has historically been marked by a high level of national pride. During 25 years of prosperity, many Greek citizens had been rescued by the expansion of the public sector … they had buried the painful past in forgetfulness and become used to the more comfortable present (now the recent past), Prof Smith argues. Thus, the current humiliation, and squeeze on the public sector, has been a profound shock. Instead of pragmatic conciliation, a desire for revenge is a much more prominent response than in Ireland, he says, noting that politicians are physically attacked in the streets. Major public buildings are set on fire. German politicians are caricatured as Nazis in the press … the radical right and the radical left are both resurgent. Prof Smith’s research has not attempted to place Spain on the coach. But I suspect the nation is nearer to Greece in its instincts than Ireland; humiliation is not something Spain has had much experience of coping with in the past.
Whether the Spanish agree with this assessment or not, the key issue is this: if Angela Merkel or the other strong eurozone leaders want to forge a workable solution to the crisis, they need to start thinking harder about that H word. Otherwise, the national psychologies could yet turn more pathogical.

The Personality Problem by David Brooks

In the 19th century, sermons were a big deal. They’d be reprinted in newspapers. In the 20th century, psychoanalysts were a big deal. There were a number of best-selling authors spinning theories about the psyche, which had a large impact on how people saw the world and themselves. This includes not only Freud and Jung, but also people like Erick Erikson, Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers, Viktor Frankl and Philip Rieff. Today we’re more into cognition and the brain. Over the years, attention has shifted from the soul to the personality to decision-making. Preoccupations have migrated from salvation to psychic security to success.
When it comes to treating mental illness, I guess I’m glad we’ve made this shift. I put more faith in medications and cognitive therapies than in Freudian or Jungian analysis. But something has been lost as well as gained. We’re less adept at talking about personalities and neuroses than we were when psychoanalysts held center stage.
For example, in the middle of the 20th century, a woman named Karen Horney (pronounced HOR-nigh) crafted a series of influential theories about personality. Like many authors of these intellectually ambitious theories, she was raised in Europe and migrated to the United States before World War II.
More than most of her male counterparts, Horney felt that people were driven by anxiety and the desire for security. People who have been seriously damaged, she argued, tend to react in one of three ways.
Some people respond to their wounds by moving against others. These domineering types seek to establish security by conquering and outperforming other people. They deny their own weaknesses. They are rarely plagued by self-doubt. They fear dependence and helplessness. They use their children and spouses as tools to win prestige for themselves. These people are often excessively proud of their street smarts. They deeply resent criticism and seek the vindictive triumph the reversal of fortunes in which they can lord their excellence over those who scorned them. These people can’t face their need for affection, so they seek to cover it by earning admiration and deference.
Other people respond to anxiety by moving toward others. These dependent types try to win people’s affections by being compliant. They avoid conflict. They become absorbed by their relationships, surrendering their individual opinions. They regard everyone else as essentially good, even people who have been cruel. They praise themselves for their long-suffering forbearance, their willingness to live for others, even though in reality they are just too scared to assert themselves. They think they are behaving selflessly, but they are really using others for whatever drips of affection they can provide.
Other people move away from others. These detached types try to isolate themselves and adopt an onlooker’s attitude toward life. As Terry D. Cooper summarizes the category in his book, Sin, Pride and Self-Acceptance, To guarantee peace, it is necessary to leave the battleground of interpersonal relationships, where there is constant threat of being captured. These detached people may put on a charming veneer to keep people away. They tamp down desire, avoid ambition and minimize conflict and risk. They want to avoid the feeling of needing someone. They seek to live tranquilly in the moment.
The domineering person believes that, if he wins life’s battles, nothing can hurt him. The dependent person believes that, if he shuns private gain and conforms to the wishes of others, then the world will treat him nicely. The detached person believes that, if he asks nothing of the world, the world will ask nothing of him.
These are ideal types, obviously, conceptual categories. They join a profusion of personality types that were churned out by various writers in the mid-20th century: the inner directed, the outer directed, the Organization Man, the anal retentive, the narcissist, the outsider.
The books that explained these theories were good bad books. The good bad book (I’m deriving the category from a phrase from Orwell) makes sweeping claims, and lumps people into big groups. Sometimes these claims are not really defensible intellectually. But they are thought-provoking and useful. They provide categories and handles the rest of us can use to understand the people around us, seeing where the category fits and thinking more precisely about where it doesn’t.
We’re probably poorer now that people like Horney have sunk to near oblivion less adept at analyzing personality. We probably have less practice analyzing personalities, whether it’s the people around us or even, say, presidential candidates.
More than that, the vocabulary you use shapes what you pay attention to. If you learn about the cognitive skills that lead to success, you’ll think a lot about success. If you learn a lot about personality, you’ll think a lot about personality.
Which is more important?