What The Free World Should Know About 21st Century Leadership

▼7 Traits of Highly Effective 21st-Century Leadership (In-Depth Intro)▼

Xi Jinping's Global Domination Plan: BRI, Geopolitics, Military ⬆ Images Hyperlinked

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS | 2021 EDITION | VOLUME 108

Leadership today requires next-level ultimate strategy execution IQ and holistic security IQ. What #iTHiNKLabs Research calls geostrategic IQ. But we're not getting the best results because our leaders lack specific 21st Century strategic skills. And why? Because increasingly stupefied free society — thanks, in America, to a mostly inept and insular press — keeps being fed rot packaged as “news”, effectively leading dumb voters to choose leaders who lack specific 21st Century strategic skills.

For example, the average American doesn't understand that news is not a show. Much the same way you don't eat your vegetables because it's fashionable, or because your favorite celebrity likes it.

There is an aggregate cumulative cost to flipping channels (just because you have 10,000+ options) or going online all in search of your favorite pothead podcaster, Youtuber or highly caffeinated anchor to serve you “news” that soothes your ego, worldview, or cult.

All that is no way to understand what 21st Century leadership entails and the character, competency, foresight, and boldness it demands. That is why increasingly, there are more clowns and fraudsters in the Congress and Senate than gravitas and leaders. From Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, to disgraced Congressman-turned OnlyFans star George Santos and more. And precisely that is why I wrote: The Smart Person's Guide To Dodging Dumb Media, Podcast, TV & Faux News. Because repeatedly electing or choosing bad, incompetent, or 20th Century leaders says more about the character and lack of seriousness of a free society than those leaders themselves. It says quite simply, that this society lacks good judgment. Just like the good judgment required to eat your veggies and fruits, whether you like it or not — for your own good health, rather than entertainment.

At a basic level for instance, no competitive society let alone superpower is supposed to be able to survive any weapon of mass distraction when that WMD happens to be its President or one running for that office.

So, make no mistake. This guide is for everyone. Whether you're in business, a student, waiter, janitor, parent, you need a better understanding of the dangers coming, and how ignorance — including putting timid, nonstrategic, dismissive, inept, appeasement-obsessed leaders, 'experts' and/or careerists in critical roles or power — is bad for you and us all.

Bookmark this page, study it thoroughly, and let it help you make better (ethical) decisions. Contact information at bottom of page. Because, like COVID-19, you can't adequately protect yourself or loved from existential threats that you're either completely unaware of, busy trivializing, or lack the skills or brain trust to combat.

Highly effective 21st Century leaders pull the trigger, and are feared because of it. So if it feels like your country, organization, or institution is either being bullied or simply is somebody's punching bag, that point, which will be reiterated throughout, is your easiest explanation.

Good leaders allow their people to live their lives and mind their business knowing that critical decision-making is in capable hands.

However, 21st Century leaders are special in that they put their followers or people's mind at ease in crisis times because they don't have to worry that all necessary and possible steps in solving complex problems and overcoming crises aren't being exhausted.

Precisely, the leadership style Ukrainians in 2022 enjoy(ed) in Volodymyr Zelenskyy despite Ukraine being under attack by Putin.

21st leaders dabble in the unthinkable. They are quick learners who are ambitious, and have a habit of quickly doing away with taboos, conventions and protocols that stand in the way of progress. But understand — 21st Century leaders come in two main flavors:

Good, or bad. As above (images hyperlinked)

The bad often demonstrate a deeper understanding of the power of deterrence while exploiting the good, and therefore principled 21st leader's tendency to underinvest in, or defer credible deterrence.

Precisely how after being courted by the West for 2 decades — during which my warnings about Vladimir Putin as early as in 2012, fell on deaf ears, until — finally, confidently facing a tentative, overcautious, and strategically cowardly President Biden and NATO Alliance, Putin showed his evil intentions and character, complete with nuclear war threats.

Despite what most Americans and idealists like to think, President Obama was no 21st Century leader. He was, like Joe Biden years later, frustrately blockheaded when it came to understanding that deterrence is not wait-and-see diplomacy and strategic execution.

Indeed, whereas George W. Bush was better at showing strength to would-be aggressors than Donald Trump, who was a known Putin asset, all 4 presidents going to Bill Clinton and beyond, arguably created the 2022 threatscape that involves 2 Hitlers:

Putin, called Putler by netizens. And China's Xi Jinping, another dictator with blood on his hands, called #Xitler (esp. on Twitter).

Regardless what regrets Obama insiders now have, the fact of the matter is, despite having the tools and authority, President Obama never took decisive action to use cyberdeterrence for example to make America's adversaries very uncomfortable about attacking the U.S., — as this 2016 blog whose feature video (by ABC News) has since been deleted, shows.

Despite abundant solutions — images and hypertexts provide insight, remember — no U.S. President has ever dared a serious or fearsome ransomware deterrence or cyber attack deterrence (images and hypertexts provide insight) doctrine in the face of worsening and expensive attacks from adversaries. That is also why Biden’s strategy to stabilize U.S.-China relations isn’t working, and why like any leader of the free world with his mindset, he will continue to be blindsided. Not just by China, but by any adversary or insider well-versed in strategic deception, as well as by the consequences of poor strategic planning that adversely affects or offends allies.

He, and many leaders in business and other spheres dealing with increasingly powerful, brash, thuggish and genocidal autocracies lack commensurate 21st Century leadership skills. Skills an exceptionally good thief, liar, con artist, strategist, defensive fighter or criminal can teach better and faster than any Ivy League, scholar, professor or writer could.

We're talking about adopting a completely different mindset.

That's what most in the West don't get in dealing with motivated, well-organized bad actors.

Winners — or more specifically in our case, highly effective 21st Century leaders — don't bother issuing empty threats when dealing with them. A concept President Biden in particular, or if you like, Obama and even Trump and other recent Western leaders don't get.

This is what makes CCP-led China “undeterrable” — to borrow Dr. John Lee's term above — both in the cyber domain and militarily. Their 'Machiavellic' (winners') mindset is well-telegraphed as to induce fear, even while spreading influence.

Being richer yet less disciplined, focused, and heavily invested in, and therefore deficient in highly effective 21st Century leadership, the U.S. by contrast, invites reckless Chinese and Russian cyber attacks and ransomware attacks precisely because it continues to have zero credible deterrence (click/tap images for deeper analysis) or policy.

In other words, very bad cyber defense in the 21st Century is one of the the first signs of highly effective 21st Century leadership missing in action. And with few exceptions like Estonia, the same can be said of most EU nations too. For, while criminals can's always be deterred, the message one telegraphs to them, or whoever abets or shelters them reflects leadership loser or winner mindset.

As the Center for Security Policy's Senior Fellow, Col Grant Newsham (Rtd) told The Sunday Guardian: The US keeps funding its main foe PRC. Something only thoughtless or nonstrategic people or nations do, — unless it is part of a grand scheme, for which the U.S. still has little to show.

Sure, the Chinese can't vote. But what do you think the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), rightly or wrongly, saw in Xi Jinping?

It's a question the free world ought to ask more often.

The mindset to tackle serious threats bad actors and autocrats like him pose begins with you.

Individually. Nationally. Organizationally.

Be you a private person, organization, leader, investor, etc.

Millennials making 'crazy' millions that their parents can't wrap their heads around, are, because of a different, and specific strategic mindset they bring to this century.

Speaking of sellouts, greed, and crazy millions, there is petulant major league 'useful idiot' Elon Musk. Perfect double agent candidate at worst. National and global security threat at best.

But I digress. Unless you clicked on the hyperlinked image above.

Similarly, the Taliban, terrorists in general, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) outsmarting your country's leaders — be it with through wolf warrior or hostage diplomacy — or letting hackers dictate what qualifies as “critical” assets or infrastructure; or even the EU sleepwalking into Putin's grip vis-à-vis Nord Stream 2, are all examples of the wrong (i.e., worst, if not ineffective and naïve) 21st Century leaders in place.

The U.S. and much of the undisciplined West and free world currently struggles against a focused China because highly effective 21st Century leadership rewards focus, substance, and long-term strategic thinking, — with national and economic security at center stage. Not distracted loud minds stuck on pettiness, self-sabotage, old glory, or social media buffoonery. (click/tap for more analysis)

Switch and keep on the right mindset, and you protect your interests. Hope for unrealistic worlds and outcomes with the short-term pragmatism of yesteryear, and you're always outfoxed. That's the challenge the free world, not just the West or President Biden faces.

Critically, for someone who holds a BSc. in both History and Political Science, Dr. David Brophy (feature video above) is a good example of the dangers of letting academics who can't accept reality dictate policy and serious strategy, whether in the Indo-Pacific or anywhere.

That is why as much as I value the insight of Minxin Pei, I submit that highly effective 21st Century leaders would rather obsessively and thoroughly 'worry' about unforeseen threats in their contingency planning, than be comforted by news or analyses concerning supposedly vanquished foes.

Whether, like former President Trump, one prefers the counsel of sycophants, or like China's Xi whose reckless belligerence is currently probably is undergoing 'quiet course correction' neither deeply flawed individuals is the kind of 21st Century leader you want to emulate. And to be clear, as reiterated subsequently, Trump, an architect of chaos, doesn't even qualify at all.

Knowing one lacks specific skills, qualities, traits, or brain trust helps. It is, after all, why we sign up for courses, degrees and certificates. But sadly, no one is telling leaders like Biden, and frustrated workers and citizens whose leaders are seemingly are out ideas, what the correct diagnosis is. Which is why countries like Lithuania deserve credit.

Before Lithuania advised its citizens to throw out and not buy Chinese phones; before it felt free to court or help Taiwan, Lithuania had to have 21st Century leaders, because realism and 'solutionism' as you'll see further below are among the key traits of highly effective 21st Century leadership.

When China has, or suspects a problem, it attacks it decisively, preemptively, proactively, aggressively, and strategically.

When the U.S. and much of the West these days has a problem, it talks about it endlessly while the problem festers.

But Lithuania is onto something, and well ahead of both the U.S. and its allies.

Whatever one thinks of nationalism, propaganda, weaponizing social media to mobilize an entire nation and other familiar Mainland Chinese CCP-orchestrated antics, acting as gatekeepers in a world in which Chinese national strategic thinking is singularly focused on eliminating threats including to its autocracy, the Western — particularly, American model — “has not been fashionable”. The reason being that insisting on angles, 'beautiful writing' or waiting for aloof public figures, celebrities, journalists and editors to 'get it' and only then, sound specific alarms or connect dots only keeps voters, Western leaders, and decision-makers way behind on evolving threats.

Whether it's the Guardian echoing the China’s low-level cyberwar, a severe threat, the above feature (see #iTHiNKLabs' 2 years Taiwan prediction), or the New York Times publishing: America Is Being Held for Ransom. It Needs to Fight Back having declined countless similar submissions prior.

That is why AUKUS continues to impress and equally frighten ideological readers — due, in most cases — to fear, as a result of being under-informed. And also, why you should never trust a techie who is not only privileged (remote working or not), and claims to “hate politics”. Or greedy HR workers prepared to hire the cheapest

They are the most gullible, and often, primary targets of despotic regimes in search of “useful idiots.” The same are endangering democracie through remote work abuse.

Yet one strategically significant trilateral security treaty does not suddenly make President Biden — whose strategic blunders keep piling up — a highly effective 21st Century leader, as his handling of the CCP hostage diplomacy (Huawei Meng Wanzhou/Michael Spavor/Michael Kovrig) case demonstrated.

It may not feel that way to social media and mobile device addicts. But 20 years on since the September 11 terror attacks, the world is a much more dangerous place. The United States is weaker, more vulnerable, continues losing prestige even in the eyes of concerned allies due to bad leadership even as it underinvests in precisely the human capital commensurate with emerging threats it faces, all in ways that should concern friends like Taiwan. Yet, disturbingly, everything most Americans know about 21st Century leadership is wrong, outdated, or requires rethinking.

Like Garry Kasporov, Ai Weiwei, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and probably Alexei Navalny just to name a few, I wince when, after almost 17 years of security research residency in China, I see the sort of insular rot that preoccupies talking heads on American TV. Because, highly effective 21st Century leadership involves meticulously executed dominance; often by almost any means leverageable. It is the stuff of strategic intensity, strategic preeminence, strategic deception, and, in its worst manifestation, malicious Stalinist, Putin, and Nazi-grade cruelty and destruction, — with world freedom-altering, global dominance ambitions on the menu. Yet Americans, like many freedom-loving people in the West, and in Taiwan in particular, don't realize they, we, are almost out of time.

Same as 'business-as-usual' business leaders who like President Bill Clinton, failed to appreciate how, by pursuing a policy of appeasement, he was in fact, inadvertently laying the groundwork for genocide in Ukraine years later.

The way to mitigate the scary aspects of highly effective 21st Century leadership is to be evolved enough to be teachable; objectively know where you, your leaders, organization(s), or nation rank, and critically, the type of strategic masterminds needed to help you lead and blunt threats.

I forewarned the U.S. about this while in China, and while President Obama and Trump were in Office. Nobody listened. After all, as Bill Bernbach said: “An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.”

Further, because America doesn't hire smart, and have too many overconfident short-term pragmatists in government, journalism, the defense industry and business rather than thorough 'worriers' and planners, Karl Rove — on this occasion, at least — happens to be right. Unless Biden uses this to make adjustments: “Afghanistan Won’t Be the Last Biden Crisis.”With China named by the Taliban as “principal partner” without ever wasting anywhere near $2.2 trillion, or losing military lives and (intellectual property and technology) assets as the fallout from President Biden's poorly executed Afghan pullout reverberates, China's risk-reward calculus and approach to Afghanistan, complete with OPM and OPR clues, expose the shallowness of American strategic thinking, and critically, a dangerous lack of world-class 21st Century leadership expertise across the board.

For one thing, American economic and national security is at stake if China can successfully use Afghanistan to extend its monopoly of critical minerals.

Sure, the Taliban may ultimately prove to be China's nemesis. But that doesn't mean the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) isn't aware of the risks it faces in Afghanistan.

Critically, whether Obama, Trump or Bush W. was your favorite, the truth is — and 20 years in Afghanistan with little to nothing to show for is indeed proof — none of them ever were 21st Century leaders. And yet the fight the U.S. and her allies have on their hands is winnable only by highly imaginative and effective 21st Century leaders. Leaders to whom your formalities, 20th Century rules-based world order, and cherished values or feelings mean nothing.

Which is why if Biden knew better, as I'm sure the likes of Khodorkovsky would tell him too, he wouldn't waste time calling regime leader Xi. Highly effective 21st Century leaders view such moves at a substantive, not petty level, as weakness, out of ideas, ripe for more intimidation and coercion. And if you doubt that, you probably haven't been paying attention or connecting the dots as China tells John “China already has its own plans and road map for achieving its climate goals.” Were Biden a highly effective 21st Century leader, he'd let America's overwhelming and irrepressible strength speak for itself, by focusing on course correction, national unity and security, as well as lots of strategic communication and engagement with Americans, even while he preps Americans — like Xi and Putin prep their Mainland Chinese and Russians respectively — about coming war(s) that Thomas Friedman's What Comes After the War on Terrorism? War on China? demonstrated worrisome lack of awareness of (click or tap below), à la Taliban take over. As forcefully also made in the feature video above.

Like many Taiwanese and Westernized or young Afghans caught off guard by the consequences of America's 20th Century leadership habit of slumbering and nurturing adversaries until they are too lethal, Americans, despite having web-enabled devices to google China daily to get a good sense of which way the wind is blowing, will be similarly caught off-guard Sino-U.S. military conflict comes.

Once again, lack of highly effective 21st Century leadership will be to blame, should we, God forbid ever get there. Because, dominance for them is security. Security to them is success. And like no other time in human history, they now have the tools plus human capital to beat and outfox America and her allies. Another argument of mine also bolstered in the feature video above. For, while we are preoccupied with legalizing drugs, divisive partisan self-sabotage, infrastructure obstruction, women's rights and voter suppression, gun hubris distraction, and senseless drama.

All while they are busy building infrastructure, bringing ghost cities back to life, modernizing their military and navy, competing with you in space — as discussed above — and even making the time to build and debut the 'world's fastest' super maglev bullet train. Hello, Amtrak.

Indeed, the lazier, greedier, more malleable and self-absorbed the American, Westerner or free world citizen, investor, entrepreneur, political leader, expat, student, scholar, stakeholder, Wall Street sellout, artist, or others with leverageable platform yet ignorantly and naïvely stuck on old thinking is, the easier for malicious, highly effective 21st Century leaders to manipulate, or recruit.

Precisely the role of Tim Cook's Apple, and many like his.

U.S. and Western companies powering the Chinese Communist Party's AI (artificial intelligence) military-civil fusion.

T.D. Jakes is right: “You don't get a [good] degree by accident. You don't get an Olympic medal by accident.” And similarly, the malicious high intentionality variant of highly effective 21st Century leadership isn't currently on the rise, by accident. And for Africans reading this with a natural affinity for destinations like Dubai or the UAE generally, you might want to study this, too.

Understanding that one lives in an age of a resurgent, belligerent, and highly efficient China, the highly effective 21st-Century leader:

Is first and foremost, a consummate realist, pragmatist, solutionist. Almost in that exact order.

Like the Mainland Chinese — albeit except of course, as regards Taiwan and other legacies of CCP self-indoctrination — effective 21st-Century leaders excel at biding time, and waiting more powerful adversaries with predictable power structures out. And for decades, the Taliban, together with the North Koreans, Iranians, and Russians have used this playbook to outfox the United States and her allies.

As in Boxing and combat sports generally, the one with better cardio, fight plan, will, and patience, and strategic execution IQ, wins. KO power alone never reliable. That is why the security and geopolitical consequences of America's current crumbling infrastructure, competitiveness, cyber, missile, and military deterrence challenges NATO, the U.S. and liberal West currently faces as China's grows, and it bullies Australia and others, plus skyrocketing national security costs of U.S. HR hiring dysfunction and underperformance, were all predicted.

Huawei hired an obscure Turkish scientist who accelerated its 5G preeminence. Americans still live in a bygone era where it is expected that even if archenemies of American progress like Mitch McConnell is off the scene, somehow, the highly effective 21st Century leader America has been lacking for decades will be — sad trombone, please — another American. A catastrophic failure of imagination indeed even as other nations overhaul their constitutions to meet 21st Century challenges and threats.

Over-sharing, too much predictability under the guise of “cooperation”, insisting on consummate professionalism, or nurturing the military, economic, or competitive rise of such adversaries, or if in business, competitors, is, put bluntly, sheer stupidity and failure of imagination; in America's case, deeply rooted in nonstrategic hiring ineptitude. There's only so much an Ivy League graduate, careerist government 'experts' or even, journalists or scholars checking into heavily surveilled, fully paid for hotels can tell you about what business counterparts or for those of us who have lived in self-imposed house arrest to survive regimes like China's, know about evolving threats, the mindset of the enemy, or situation on the ground.

If political parties focused less on self-defeating partisanship, obstructionism and more on educating themselves and their base, American voters would think bigger, value 21st Century leaders, and vote them in, knowing, like Taiwanese should too, that time isn't on their side.

Albeit not necessarily callous, thuggish, or, genocidal like the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), the Taliban, and regimes like Putin's or Kim Jong-un's, the effective 21st-Century leader is nevertheless ruthlessly efficient, running by the clock in a strategic way that best suits their grand vision, — and/or crude ambitions.

Needless to say, I don't condone the latter.

Nevertheless, heightened awareness of precisely that mindset is a trait of only the highly effective 21st Century leader, who factors such predispositions and other base instincts of malicious people wielding power, in their contingency, policy planning and operations.

Another well-placed American that would make a good 21st century President of the United States is former National Security Council Director for European Affairs, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman.

#iTHiNKLabs has addressed the issue of his being a naturalized American.

Unfortunately, like Jocko Willink, he is either too busy, simply unresponsive — a disqualifying trait — or, snubby to people he doesn't know, as attempts have been made to reach out to both. Which brings us to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, a purpose-driven articulate leader who continues to tick most of the boxes.

Whatever the case, as Alexander The Great would counsel, a good leader in general is open to counsel, and therefore to ideas, whatever the source.

And Milley, notoriously has angered partisan Republicans for being circumspect enough to withhold sensitive national security intelligence information from the notoriously unhinged President Trump during his chaotic presidency.

But where Gen. Milley is at the time of writing constrained in his responsibilities under the President of the United States of America, Retired General Ben Hodges ticks the box as a fearless 21st Century leader who'd likely manage chaos better and with commensurate, timely lethal force than the frustratingly timid Biden Administration.

This is why the quest for great 21st Century leaders must be both never-ending and objective, as calibrations will always be needed to gauge the risks and flaws each bring to evolving threats.

Remember that, as you reconcile the ambition, controversy and likely fall of China's Xi Jinping in, or after 2022, with the below.

Xi Jinping's consolidation of power in China while rapidly modernizing the PLA and the Taliban's 20 year war of attrition against allied forces offer good study. And the fact that one struggles to find solid comparisons in the West and indeed among allied nations explains the lack of vision and effective cohesion currently challenging the resurgence autocracies like Xi's and Putin's enjoy.

Leads less by impulse, and more, by cold strategic, flexible assessment of the best options for country or organization.

Operationally, these are thorough strategic thinkers and contingency planners. Highly effective 21st Century are not dismissive, lazy thinkers or authoritarians that are quick to trivialize risk mature assessments and prognoses as “paranoid” nor are you ever likely to find them leading or firing by tweets. 21st Century leaders only respect overwhelming strength, credible deterrence, and 'show, don't tell' personality types.

Even the most ruthless of them find verbal warnings, summits, consultation with adversaries, and threats based on hope (of change in behavior) or similar 20th Century tactics or (military) formalities, risible.

That's the danger of New York Times articles like: What the U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan Means for Taiwan. Or Thomas Friedman's What Comes After the War on Terrorism? War on China?

Wrongly categorized under 'offensive' by Twitter's algorithm, my response further rekindled the concern I had back in January and February 2020, writing from inside China. And like COVID-19, Americans still aren't getting the best journalism and leadership. Which means, like the pandemic, Afghanistan, or 9/11, Americans and allies could die avoidable deaths, just because an effective and disciplined 21st Century villain masquerading as legitimate leader made a series of deadly or game-changing moves that America's 20th Century 'experts' and leaders didn't anticipate.

That is why it pays to remember that principles like the ones taught in previous Leadership series, or Lifehacker's are still very much relevant. But the only catch is: You need an adaptable, always-on, multi-dimensional mindset that kicks in and empowers you to effectively know when, where, and how to switch it up, or dial it down in your decision-making. The it, in this case being, any whiff of ideology in your leadership style, negotiations, business activities, intellectual digestion of current affairs, emerging threats and challenges.

Hires only truly risk mature advisors, planners, 'worriers' and solution architects, with demonstrated holistic, evolving understanding of the global threatscape.

That's how they dominate. It starts with their mindset, as explained above.

Same game played in countries like China, where distractions are frowned upon, and focus and results is king.

Integrity meanwhile, is another matter.

This too, a highly effective 21st Century leader who is simultaneously an ethical and consummate professional, finds a way to adjust to, without ceding much. SOmething the U.S. hasn't figured out how to do.

Being unstoppable, sets the tone for allies, believers and doubters alike by speaking less, being more self-directed, highly strategic, action-oriented, and projecting strength and self-assuredness.

Yet albeit collaborative, they are cautious and realistic about allies and their limits, and avoid over-reliance on them.

Part 2 expatiate on this trait. Moving on:

They are particularly adept at hitting without getting hit, or expending the least amount of energy or capital while managing to reap optimum rewards, compared to the competition.

An in-depth study (see Part 2) of what many wrongly view as China's higher risk appetite compared to the West's, in emerging market investment across Africa, Latin America and other regions, as well as most recently, their Afghanistan gambit is a case in point.

In their relentless quest therefore, they actively bolster — rather than merely pay lip service to — internal or national self-reliance, while eliminating drags on performance.

May not personally be effective communicators. But in the interest of national unity, cohesion, stability and security, they appreciate the importance of messaging, strategic communication and engagement, proactively taking steps to blunt malicious informational and similar grey zone threats — or, in the case of the CCP — leveraging (dystopian) tech to advance propaganda and censorship. And rightly or wrongly, independent or not, in so doing, impact, and/or set the tone for local media, too.