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Hubris and the Lack of Humility
Afghanistan is a catastrophe on so many levels in terms of the military, governance, human beings, security, with an overabundance of hubris and lack of humility. But, you might say, we have always acted out of hubris in the past and gotten away with it. And why
would anyone expect a show of humility from any president, past or present? The reason is that the current devastation is costing our country, the Afghan people, and the rest of the world dearly, because decisions were made out of gross incompetence and the very attributes I am citing.
I couldn’t help wondering if our pride in the greatness of our country has finally caught up with us. Were we too prideful? Did we refuse to learn from our mistakes and spend all our time blaming others for our problems? Did we believe our own propaganda so thoroughly as a world leader that we’ve been unable to reflect on our own actions or refused to make tough decisions?
And what about our lack of humility? Too often people think that humility is a weakness, that it is passive and ineffective. We believe that because to be effectively humble is very difficult. And many of us don’t want to do the challenging work on ourselves to be sufficiently humble, at the right time and in the right place.
And now we find ourselves stumbling around trying to figure out what to do next, blaming others, refusing to admit our mistakes, and hoping some kind of miracle will happen.
I have news for you, Joe Biden: the time for miracles is long past.
Let me suggest that we take a look at the nature of hubris and why its effects are so debilitating at this time in our history. And then take a look at ways that the president did not practice humility to demonstrate effective leadership. Since this disaster is not going to be finished overnight, maybe someone working close to Biden might give these strategies a try.
* * * *
In looking at the meaning of hubris, I was struck by the fact that it’s been identified as a psychological malady, a syndrome, actually. I don’t think this entire description applies to Biden, given his mental erosion, as well as the probability that he is being guided by others. But I suspect some of his “handlers” might qualify:
Hubris syndrome was formulated as a pattern of behaviour in a person who: (i) sees the world as a place for self-glorification through the use of power; (ii) has a tendency to take action primarily to enhance personal image; (iii) shows disproportionate concern for image and presentation; (iv) exhibits messianic zeal and exaltation in speech; (v) conflates self with nation or organization; (vi) uses the royal ‘we’ in conversation; (vii) shows excessive self-confidence; (viii) manifestly has contempt for others; (ix) shows accountability only to a higher court (history or God); (x) displays unshakeable belief that they will be vindicated in that court; (xi) loses contact with reality; (xii) resorts to restlessness, recklessness and impulsive actions; (xiii) allows moral rectitude to obviate consideration of practicality, cost or outcome; and (xiv) displays incompetence with disregard for nuts and bolts of policy making.
Fascinating, isn’t it? If we take into account that Biden is probably being guided by others who probably have an exaggerated view of their own importance by this time, the possibilities for mismanagement are endless.
I suspect their misguided decisions in the face of contrary facts would include misunderstanding the Afghan people, misreading the Taliban, announcing the departure well in advance, poor management of extricating the Afghan translators and their families, the plan to exit during the fighting season—I could go on, but I’ve intended to show that in spite of information to the contrary, the Executive Group foolishly thought they could beat the odds. They were wrong. And they ignored the recommendations of the military (although there’s reason to believe they would not have been helpful). Which leads to my comments on humility.
Demonstration of humility is a key part of effective leadership. It requires, however, a level of competent self-reflection, a fully functioning mind and a willingness to develop one’s skills in this area. Here is a partial list of a definition of humility. Three attributes that I thought were most important to, and lacking in, Biden and in his handlers were these:
- BE OPEN TO OTHERS’ OPINIONS–Humble leaders seek input from others to ensure they have all the facts and are making decisions that are in the best interest of the team.
- ADMIT MISTAKES—Owning up to mistakes shows a level of honesty and self-confidence.
- SELF-REFLECT—Evaluating decisions, their impact, success and failure is an excellent way to learn and mature on the job.
In my assessment, Joe Biden was probably unable or unwilling to take on these challenges, leading to the chaos in Afghanistan.
* * * *
Pursuing any of these behavioral challenges as President of the United States would be difficult for any man or woman. It requires a level of commitment, competency, intelligence, honesty with one’s self, and integrity.
We find ourselves in a calamitous situation with no end in sight, and no viable solutions, at least at the moment. We have betrayed the Afghan people, shamed ourselves in the eyes of the rest of the world, estranged ourselves from our allies and are floundering in the remnants of our own delusion.
After hearing Biden’s speech the other day, it’s clear his hubris is at an all-time high and humility is nowhere in sight.
I’m very worried.
Published in Foreign Policy
Are we really though. It seems to me this is happening when pride in America, confidence in our country is at a low ebb. I wonder if this would have befallen us if we weren’t so convinced that to quote the hopefully soon to be former governor of New York, “America was never that great”. For that matter I wonder if Joe Biden, or Donald Trump for that matter could have been a elected if we had more confidence and pride in America.
I definitely agree that our ruling class exhibits tremendous hubris about their own world view and capabilities yet, they don’t really have pride or faith in America or American culture. I think having America taken down a peg and having a disaster in Afghanistan is a feature rather than a bug to them.
Classically hubris is pursued by Nemesis. One can only hope that her hand passes over the country to hit the ruling class; however, that is probably a vain hope as you eloquently put it “the time for miracles is long past”.
In reflecting on your comments, I agree with you, @raxxalan. All your points, in fact. As often happens, these betrayals are about personal hubris and personal lack of humility, with a desire to push us down even lower. I don’t know if our pride and confidence had been greater, whether that would have made a difference in this situation; hubris (I believe) transcends reason and any other obstacles: when you are determined to get your way, nothing else much matters. The opinions of citizens and allies, even enemies, are irrelevant. Thanks for your comment.
I have this book, “The Tyranny of Numbers” that my wife mocks me to this day when she saw me reading it when first married 26 years ago now.
The author goes into many different topics but reviews several Intelligence cases after the Soviet Union fell that he claimed should have been an indication as to how fragile their system had become. He reviewed crop and milk production figures that our CIA analysts felt indicated a robust Soviet food production, the actual farmers that eventually reviewed same numbers from Dept. Of Ag detected the fraudulent figures right away. The Soviets were watering down the milk to make production goals as the grain figures and what those cows would require to produce at that level didn’t come close to matching.
I recall early on in the Afghanistan occupation, when Don Rumsfeld was having continued issues with training the Afghans, delayed deadline after delayed deadline. I liked and respected Rumsfeld
I think he recognized quicker than most that they’d never be ready. The military brass and state department bureaucrats also figured it out and “pencil whipped” progress reports ever since. The brass like it, the contractors liked it, the defense contractors liked it, the NGO’s liked it.
A lot of people made money, careers advanced, casualties finally slowed down to next to nothing. It morphed into a typical Gov’t program that couldn’t/wouldn’t be stopped.
I think the Biden fools just thought they’d have more time before the actual fall, enough time to make it look orderly and strategic. Generals Austin and Milley and the CIA/NSC heads- they’re even bigger fools than Biden. They’ve been jerking around with 1/6 insurrections, Whites Supremiscists under their beds, tranny & gay policies instead of doing their damned jobs.
Astute and relevant insights, @wicon. I lost count of the number of lies that Biden had in his speech. It’s so pathetic. And of course, his people back him up. And since we lack influence on the MSM, I’m sure they’re reluctant to list them. Thank you.
I was just watching the press confernce given by Jake Sullivan (Biden’s “National Security Advisor”). He seems to be so smart, so self-assured, and so wrong.
I looked up his bio and saw that he received his undergraduate degree from Yale, his Master’s from Oxford and his J.D. from Yale. In other words, he has “punched all his tickets”.
So naturally, he has held high positions in the Obama Administration including a gig as Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff.
In the presser, I noticed that the glib answers come easily to his lips. And, when a reporter from Taiwan pressed him on America’s reliability, he curtly cut her off saying, “…since you’re interrupting me, I’m going on to the next question.”
Humility is something that Sullivan will never possess. He will spend his entire working career in the highest positions in government and will continue to be outsmarted by Third World thugs with a 14th century mentality.
Oh, but he’s sure that the Taliban will provide safe passage for civilians trying to get out. He just said so! Good grief. . .
“Everyone else has failed, but I will succeed”. That may be a true statement, but it doesn’t happen unless someone has truly studied the failures of others to carefully chart a path to success, not simply because he/she is “better, abler, and smarter”. From Alexander the Great to today, no one has been successful in controlling Afghanistan. There were plenty of signs.
Yup. No need for metaphysical psychological probing. This disaster was written a long time ago in bureaucraic triplicate.
Oh, they’re doing the jobs they were hired to do. Afghanistan is a fart compared to the rest of Obama’s third term.
If Biden were actually in charge, he might exercise more prudence if only because he knows he’s the one who will be held accountable. The cabal that is actually running things gets to make decisions but not experience the personal consequences of poor decision-making. So they can indulge their ideological fantasies and let clueless Joe suffer the fallout. Worst possible leadership setup.
What amazed me about the Taliban advance was its rapidity. And that it came as such a surprise. How could the US have trained and then basically provided essential air support to an army for twenty years and still not had any inkling that it would fold rather than fight? Did they speak more than they listened? Did they train people to lie to them by rewarding what was palatable over what was true?
By strange coincidence I was thinking about hubris today – while watching the debacle on the news (and via YouTube the Indian and [a bit of] Pakistani media) and it occurred to me that the American Empire (or whatever word you prefer to use for its overseas project) won’t fail due to lack of capacity or will or might or treasure. It might fail due to hubris – which includes the inability to see things from someone else’s point of view. Is that what brings every Empire down?
First, I think your first paragraph is spot on, @zafar. We wanted them to be competent. We wanted to believe that were capable of giving them the training they needed. We believed that we could wipe out centuries of tribal tradition. We knew our system was superior and that they would recognize our traditions were superior. We bought into our own delusions: hubris.
I don’t think hubris is the only reason, but I believe it is a key factor in the downfall of empires–by the rulers and the people.
The water which drowned us did not flow into place. It thawed right where it was and we fell through. Our military had seen the bodies bumping along the underside of the thin ice, and wrote reports back home swearing the lake was frozen solid.
Anybody who can get hold of unclassified status assessments of various ANA units will probably find that the units and leaders which folded or showed up to work in a pakol were assessed combat-ready.
As far as I know, nobody who has served there was surprised, although a great many people are “officially” surprised. Shocked, no doubt.
It’s been an open secret that the Taliban has been offering the Pashtun equivalent of plata o plomo to members of the Afghan army and to regional officials for over a year. As to the Afghan National Army, Daniel Greenfield puts like this:
Sure, there were people in Afghanistan who wanted and worked for a modern liberal state. Just not enough of them. Those on the right in the US justly mock the Left for thinking that good intentions and depending on miracles is good enough. How was nation building in Afghanistan any different?
As sure as water is wet, sooner or later (but long before the generations needed to produce said liberal state in Afghanistan, provided enough miracles took place) the political stars would align in the USA and the USA would leave those sincere idealists and everyone they employed or were otherwise connected to out to dry.
Cui bono from all of this? The PRC, for one. A coincidence, no doubt.
Great article. The country has lost its bearing and confidence, but the leaders, senior bureaucrats and uneducated new billionaires who run the digital companies, are clueless, don’t know how the world works (not the right word) or anything other than how to turn a digital buck, at which they are brilliant, but the winners will be the Chinese not them, and it will happen rapidly because the Chinese can’t risk a self correction.
There’s this interview on the Katie Halper Show of this Leftist Iraq Veteran Mike Prysner, and he does use words like imperialism a lot, but what he says about the measures they used to report success or failure in Afghanistan is somewhat (to me) shocking.
I have read and heard that the way America trained the Afghan defense forces to fight was essentially as a mini-American model of combat. A doctrine we stresses mobility and especially coordination with air power. This worked very well when America was around to provide air support and more importantly logistical support. Biden withdrew both the air support and the logistical support in May I believe. It was only a matter of time before the maintenance issues would effectively ground the Afghans air force. At that point all their training failed them. I don’t doubt we trained them well to use our strategy and tactics, after all it is what we know. What we never trained them to do and probably couldn’t in the 20 years we had was how to run our logistics. That is probably what contributed to the speed of the collapse.
I agree the hubris of the leadership class in America could be what dooms the American experiment; however, I suspect the lack of confidence in it by the people is a more insidious poison. If you lack confidence that your culture and country is worth defending your not going to have a country for very long let alone an Empire.
Hubris certainly played a part in the fall of the Persian Empire, and Alexander’s. I think the western Roman empire succumbed more to the confidence crisis I described. I am not sure about the eastern Roman empire. Likewise I think the British Empire largely fell apart because of confidence rather than Hubris but I could be wrong about that. The Soviet Empire certainly died because of confidence rather than Hubris although I think they had both in strong measure.
100%, and as I think you said it’s China who’s ponying up the money to buy that outcome.
Which is why I suspect that Pakistan’s ISI (and general) happiness at the outcome may be premature. China may reap the economic rewards, and to assume that Pakistan will Pakistanise the Taliban’s goals that
thenthe Taliban Talibanising (more) Pakistan as a society is….hubris.Deliberate. They were trained to be dependent, aka dependable.
The reason hubris was so crippling to our efforts is that it prevented us from recognizing what should have been obvious: we couldn’t turn back hundreds, thousands of years of tribal perspective and allegiances, as well as the recognition that the Afghan army would not survive against the Taliban without US troops. The more recent devastation of the Taliban forces against the Afghans 20 years ago should have made that clear to us– if we were able or willing to see clearly.
The “capitalistic” USA did even less than the USSR to develop Afghanistan’s strategic mineral resources. I doubt the CCP will make that mistake. I’m sure they’ve been consulting experts on shariah compliant finance, and developing plans on how to turn that system to their advantage. They already have the Uighurs for an object lesson.
One of the things we don’t know is the extent to which our precipitous exit demoralized the Afghan security forces. It’s one thing to leave according to a well-communicated and understood exit plan. It’s another thing to drop whatever you are doing, abandon your allies, and run out the back door as fast as you can, which is essentially what we did. It takes a high degree of morale and discipline for a military unit to stay organized when units around it are falling apart or fleeing. The intelligence estimates were no doubt based on a well-thought out, mutually agreed on, gradual U.S. exit plan. Not the Afghans waking up one morning to discover we are gone.
In 2008 I motored past a Chinese mining operation in Ghowrmach province. At the time we joked that we were “Making Afghanistan Safe for Chinese Capitalism”
Sorry, but I only made it 3.5 minutes into that. That piece of work should be on trial.
Why should it be blamed for being what it is rather than you for refusing to listen to it? Is that the hubris we were speaking of?
( I’m not saying you have to agree with all of it, I don’t, but what is this refusing to listen to anything unless you agree with all of it all the time about?)
It isn’t like Biden was warned.
Here is VDH warning Biden about his hubris and the attraction it presents to Nemesis.
VDH projections were all about domestic issues, whit one clause talking about unscripted conversations with foreign leaders. There will be many many of those following the catastrophe of the Afghan withdrawal.
I am popping popcorn.
Probably, although it is also natural to train someone the way you do something. It doesn’t always have to be bad motives It is just as likely it was a poorly thought out. Part of Hubris is believing your way is the right way and insisting on its use. Also I have no doubt in all the many hours of training in military tactics the American military forgot to train people how to maintain a helicopter. In the first place it is a skill that is not necessarily easy to learn. In the second place it isn’t directly related to fighting. Finally I have noticed that elites in this country don’t actually pay attention to the details of how things get done, so they tend to overlook the important things that have to occur under the covers to make their grand designs work,
You have made two mischaracterizations there. I don’t even understand the first — I just know it isn’t what I said. And the second, I do not refuse to listen to anything unless I agree with all of it all of the time.
Very sloppy. That’s going to cost a point.
This guy got out as an E-4 after four years and has spent his time since committing sedition. I’m sure he calls it something else. He affiliates himself with active duty personnel about to deploy, and “helps them resist orders”.
That girl with the bulldog scowl was bad enough to listen to (I find her grating), and the young man even more so. The progressive patois sets my teeth on edge. There’s text, subtext, meta-text, context… fashion is a language. Diction is a language. Manners are a language. It is not unreasonable to tune people out based on what they have chosen to say — long before they get around to making a point.
Lip-smacking, uptalk, vocal fruyyy, chopped sentences, appositive fragments — these are all bad things. She chalked up three right off the bat. Were the roles reversed, my tics would be called micro-aggressions. As it is, I have simply decided not to listen to her. Leftists don’t get shouted down under physical threat.
I like Jimmy Dore. I bet you do, too.
Good to see you again!
Too much confidence, or too much of a lack of same? I’d say both. We have a lot of people in leadership positions who have a strong sense of hubris as applied to themselves and their friends, but a lack of confidence in the country as a whole.
See my 2015 post What are Obama’s True Feeling About American and Americans? for more, including two analogies…applicable not only to Obama, but to the category of people of which he is the avatar.
Good point, @davidfoster. What looks like hubris can show up from overconfidence as well as lack of confidence. Either way, it is likely to lead to terrible decisions.