A Curator of Strategy, Leadership, Spirituality, and Rock and Roll…. "Changing the world…one "contact" at a time…."
Articles by me or at least mostly by me…
The Obsolescence of Overmatch A tectonic shift is underway in the character of war....and maybe I am just spitballing here...but, the traditional Clausewitzian conception—war as the destruction of an enemy’s military forces to compel political will—is collapsing under the weight of modern complexity. In its place emerges a new model of victory: one achieved not …
Continue reading "Paralysis as Victory: The Architecture of 21st Century Conflict: DeMarco Banter"
“We’re playing 2-D chess while Beijing is playing 4-D chess.” — Former National Security Council China Director I’ve been thinking about strategy for most of my life — as a student of history, a practitioner of leadership, and a citizen watching the world shift around us. What makes strategy truly strategic? What separates deliberate, long-range action …
Continue reading "Chessboards and Sandcastles: The Quiet Power of Long-Term Strategy–DeMarco Banter"
In the winter of 2028, the lights in the western hemisphere didn't go out all at once. They flickered—on screens, in minds, in institutions—until the world quietly realized it had entered a new kind of darkness. A darkness not of power, but of perception. Not of silence, but of signal. It was the year the …
The Comfort of “Good Enough” There’s a peculiar danger that stalks successful organizations, leaders, and even artists: the trap of “good enough.” When the metrics look solid, when the crowd is clapping, when the machine is humming along smoothly, the temptation is to keep things as they are. Why rock the boat? Why introduce turbulence …
Artificial Intelligence is no longer a speculative concept but a defining condition of our era. Leaders across sectors have grown comfortable describing AI as a “tool,” yet this framing is already outdated. A tool waits passively to be used; a condition saturates the environment whether we engage it or not. Just as weather, markets, and …
The Song as Prophecy Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” first appeared in 1988, yet it sounds like it was written yesterday. Its refrain—everybody knows—is a haunting chorus of resignation, a recognition that corruption, betrayal, and decay are not hidden but openly visible. We live in an age of unprecedented transparency: livestreamed wars, financial scandals dissected in …
1. Nietzsche’s Enduring Challenge to Conventional Leadership Paradigms Few thinkers unsettle as profoundly as Friedrich Nietzsche. His writings on morality, truth, and meaning strike at the roots of Western culture, exposing what he saw as its life-denying foundations. He argued that conventional values—humility, obedience, piety—emerged not from vitality or strength but from what he called slave morality: the …
What NATO calls “cognitive warfare” is not simply information operations rebranded. It transcends land, sea, air, space, and even cyberspace. Its purpose is not to control what people know, but to shape how they know it, altering the orientation process that underpins judgment and action. Russia and China treat this as a primary instrument of power: a way to fragment societies and achieve …
Continue reading "The Dialectic of Deception: John Boyd and the Cognitive Battlefield: WOTR"
The Obsolescence of Decisive Battle The strategic logic of the 20th century rested on a singular premise: wars are decided on the battlefield. The state that destroyed its opponent’s armed forces dictated political outcomes. Clausewitz’s dictum—that war is “an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will”—framed the entire modern era of …
Continue reading "Paralysis as Victory: The Architecture of 21st Century Conflict: DeMarco Banter"
I have to admit, I’m old—but not that old. Led Zeppelin was already well established by the time I started listening to rock music. Still, I vividly remember when In Through the Out Door came out while I was in junior high—just before John Bonham’s tragic death in 1980. That moment marked the end of …
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