Quote from faruba zaruba on January 24, 2024, 2:09 am

Great book on Leadership, realpolitik, and the power dynamics of leading at the highest levels. I've been impressed on the high volume of high quality sources and would like to make this request and people's response.

Main takeaways:

1 – Leaders do not lie very often to other countries, but instead seem more inclined to lie to their own people. Although lying is widely viewed as reprehensible behaviour in ordinary life, it is acceptable conduct in international politics because there are sometimes good strategic reasons for leaders to lie to other countries and even to their own people. Nevertheless, there is actually not much lying between states. Leaders do lie to other countries on occasion, but much less often than one might think.

2 – Leaders appear to be more likely to lie to their own people about foreign policy issues than to other countries. That certainly seems to be true for democracies that pursue ambitious foreign policies and are inclined to initiate wars of choice, i.e., when there is not a clear and imminent danger to a country’s vital interests that can only be dealt with by force.

 

Actionable Insights:

– The three different forms of lying; lying, spinning and concealment.

– The inventory of international lies, what they are and why they are used.

– The costs and benefits of each type of lie.