Why Narcissists Start Unwinnable Wars

In Part I, we began with CNI philosophy answering the big question, “Why do narcissists start unwinnable wars?”

We then looked at disordered paths that historically give malignant narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths the highest number of chances to commit horrible “mistakes,” cruelties, and “classic blunders” until stopped.

Predictable signs include:

• Wealthy and powerful toxic predators’ preferred form of government is authoritarian oligarchy.

• The key trait malignant types have in common is only viewing reality through a self-serving lens.

• A 100% self-obsessed, distorted point of view causes them to misinterpret everything in their favor.

• They automatically create personal reality distortion fields to sweep away the truths that are inconvenient or they can’t handle, psychologically.

Unfortunately, CNI has observed for two decades that a fundamental human weakness is the failure to recognize the millions of predators hiding in the shadows or in plain sight. I know. I was there once.

Therefore, in Part II, we break down the distortions that come from such structurally weakened minds and why they are so inherently dangerous, slippery, and existential, and yet their distorted perception is also likely to be their downfall.

It is this fragility that is one of our keys, because malignant narcissists’ psychological weaknesses must be effectively used against them for free societies to survive.

Of course, as an honorable warrior, I had to answer the question, “Is it dishonorable to use someone’s disordered subconscious against them?”

For me at least, the answer was simple. If you must stop someone without honor from cruelly hurting people by using their narcissism against them, it is not only honorable, it is poetic and karmic justice.

Certainly, from a CNI perspective, the choice also seems simple because toxic predators compulsively ruin or destroy everything they touch due to being 100% self-serving and self-protecting. It’s their nature, nurture, or both, and there is currently no cure except for the people exercising their power of countering them, so we must.

The hope is that in 50 to 100 years, the science exists to heal incomplete, damaged, and/or trauma-rewired brains. Until then, it’s fight or flight with 100 million or more of our species’ lizard brains. However, a global flight leads to a dark dystopia and an accelerated extinction, so not really an option for those who care about the future.

It is not hyperbolic to say that the survival of our species turns on what we do over the next few years against humanity’s natural and inevitable predators and supervillains.

Fortunately, these realities make our mission clear. To save humanity from those who would destroy it, generation after generation needs to counter our darkness by finding and building new “firm barriers” that can contain it.

So fragile

In the psychological context, it would appear that most unwinnable conflicts start with a “narcissistic injury” because it is the nature of a narcissist to lash out when hurt, feeling weak, needing to be soothed, or facing any truth they can’t handle.

Surprisingly, these types of ego injuries can be as minor as a small criticism, loss of status, mildly disrespectful words, or anything else most of us adults have had to learn to handle as part of life’s ups and downs.

Tragically, for almost anyone with such fragile and inflated egos, every setback feels existential because it could psychologically bring down their entire house of delusional cards. The seriousness of this threat is why their reactions are so out of proportion, and they feel a compulsion to retaliate. How dare we humiliate them by questioning the lies they need to survive?

Soothing the pain

When a narcissist starts a conflict or war, it serves as an outlet for their emotional pain or primal discomfort. While someone with empathy agonizes over the costs and lives lost, the malignantly disordered feel “strong” by having the power over life and death and causing costly destruction, but like everything in their lives, any soothing effect is only temporary.

When one is without empathy, what stops them from starting wars just to change the focus away from their corruption at home? Certainly, wars are big enough to distract from “petty” toxic predator issues, such as making everything in the country worse to benefit themselves, to protect pedophiles, or to steal everything that isn’t nailed down.

The narcissist’s escalation trap

The ultimate problem with narcissists starting wars is that once the conflict begins, they inevitably get caught in Professor Pape’s escalation trap, but it is so much worse because the escalation trap model assumes rational actors.

In contrast, while clinical narcissists often appear to exhibit rational behavior, their narcissistic traits compromise their entire decision-making structure and process. This dynamic is what leads them to making irrational decisions such as starting unwinnable wars.

Indeed, rational actors are driven to escalation because admitting a mistake is too much to bear, so imagine how much more triggering that reality is for irrational actors like malignant narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths when admitting even the smallest mistake is an existential threat to the self-image they need to believe.

This irrational dynamic explains why narcissists will almost always keep doubling down until stopped. In the case of trump and Iran, Iran taking control of the Strait of Hormuz and global oil supplies (as was always predicted) has obviously stopped many narcissists in their tracks because it’s a firm barrier they are economically forced to surrender to.

As we see from trump, each setback only increases the pressure he feels to keep up his deluded fantasy world, which is why he keeps lying and lashing out instead of doing what he must to keep the global economy stable. Compulsive needs are why a malignant type’s war is rarely about strategy or political goals. They are most often about psychological survival, which is another reason why narcissist leaders who are only capable of serving themselves are unqualified by definition.

This dynamic illustrates a malignant narcissist’s true escalation trap, because if a person denies ever being wrong and needs to be right, why would they ever stop until stopped? It is also why we have the CNI axiom, “Narcissists can’t or won’t stop themselves, so we as civil societies must stop them.”

As we have seen in recent years with trump, putin, and netanyahu, backing down for narcissists, sociopaths, or psychopaths appears psychologically impossible, even when their war is clearly unwinnable militarily, unless they hit a barrier as firm as Hormuz.

Of course, in the case of netanyahu, it is believed if his war stops, he is likely out of power and will be in a corruption trial soon after. CNI can predict what someone without a conscience would do in such a scenario, and unfortunately it perfectly matches what he has done.

As we like to say, if he isn’t a malignant type, he sure gives a near-perfect impression of one. Shockingly, trump has been saying similar things to netanyahu to get him to stop bombing everyone.

When recently asked about his relationship with bibi, trump said, “It’s good” “but we have to keep him a little bit, uh, sane.” Not completely sane? Just “a little bit.” Wow!

A new example shows the power of a firm barrier

Obviously, counters to these toxic rules are the firm barriers CNI preaches we all desperately need more of. In other words, if one has a firm barrier that will force the narcissist to stop, retreat, or surrender, the longer the delay, the more damage they can do.

However, it’s generally best to keep them unaware of your weapons because it makes them more effective, and you never want to activate one before it is fully ready. This is because there is no more slippery creature on Earth than a caught and cornered malignant narcissist, and you often only have one shot, so it is usually best to wait for the right moment.

Thankfully, from the Strait of Hormuz, we have a new firm barrier example that demonstrates if you can existentially harm a narcissist’s wealth and power, while they may lash out for a few months in hopes of reversing the situation, when you have the cards, most will eventually be forced to submit.

It’s also looking like the Ukrainians have transformed drone warfare into a firm barrier putin can’t survive much longer. It was recently reported that Russia is suffering over 50,000 casualties a month and is struggling to deploy 30,000 per month. In fact, Russian soldiers are starting to post how they will turn their guns on him if he doesn’t end his lost cause.

Of course, a toxic predator posing as a leader cares nothing for the lives of the soldiers he wastes while failing to recognize they are in an unwinnable war. Unfortunately, until they run into that firm barrier that stops them, as Iran has done to trump, they will keep wasting lives and resources until stopped, because in these kinds of disordered minds, everything is preferable to admitting defeat or being called a loser.

Conclusions

At its core, an unwinnable war launched by a narcissist is not a strategic failure, it is almost a psychological inevitability based on their intolerance of any truth that doesn’t fit the self-deluded dark fantasies they either need or want to believe.

CNI’s vision of the future is so clear. If sectors of society invest resources to limit childhood trauma and build firm barriers to prevent malignant types from abusing others, we can contain the barbarians at the gate until we can heal human brains of such maladies.

Always remember that just as democracies require active citizens to survive, we now need to be active in demanding our governments aggressively reduce societal trauma and counter individuals who are pathologically programmed to self-serve, self-enrich, self-protect, and dominate.

The truth is, understanding these dynamics is not theoretical. We are here now, and the first step is building modern defenses against the toxic predators who can’t stop until stopped. Again, if we don’t take much more serious action immediately, they will ruin everything good on Earth and end up destroying us all by starting more unwinnable wars.

People Say the Most Amazing Things

·

December 24, 2024

As regulars have often heard, CNI’s mission and philosophy almost always provides moral clarity. One of my favorite moral questions to ask is, “Does this serve the mission of bringing greater underst…

Counter-Narcissist Database

·

March 8, 2025

Please find the updated CNI database. For those unfamiliar with how the library is designed to function, it is important not to t…