Psychopathy is a personality disorder.  Psychopathy is sometimes confused with thinking (psychotic) disorders or mood disorders, but these disorders are markedly different in the areas of the brain that are affected and in the behaviors that result.  Psychopathy is about control; psychopaths are without conscience and have a pathological need to control other people on whom the psychopath has no claim nor has any right to control. 

Many people are willing to cede control of their lives or some portion of their lives to a psychopath for various reasons, often as the result of some personal sense of inadequacy, a need for recognition, a need to correct a perceived wrong, or to follow an enticing ideology.  All wars are, or become, a dispute over psychopathic control by one or both of the opposing sides

Psychopathy is typically the product of genetic, traumatic, social, and/or psychological damage to the psychopath's neurological system, and psychopathy is now considered to be incurable.  The psychopath's neurological damage results in the lack of a conscience but leaves other mental functions intact within normal ranges, though psychopaths may be particularly subject to co-morbidities, including substance abuse or other mental conditions; psychopaths tend to become paranoid and vindictive when their need for control is thwarted.  Lack of a conscience permits the psychopath to selectively ignore society's rules which may result in various levels of damage to society, including in the extreme dishonesty, fraud, murder, and other predatory behaviors.  The psychopath typically creates a false personality with attractive components aimed specifically at his intended victims.  Psychopaths are often considered "charming" or "charismatic" but the charm is a fabricated mask to provide cover for the psychopath's predatory behaviors, which only become obvious at a later date. 

Psychopaths operate on all scales from abusive family members (Casey Anthony) to totalitarian dictators (Hitler).  Clinical psychopathy is defined by anti-social behaviors, narcissistic behaviors, sexual immaturity, and criminal tendencies using Dr. Robert Hare's Psychopathy Check List - Revised.  Totalitarian dictators are reluctant to sit for psychological exams, but they do display behaviors typical of clinical psychopaths: pathological dishonesty, self-aggrandizement, corruption, and criminality, for examples.  Such personalities are labeled as operational psychopaths or functional psychopaths. 

Dr. Hare declined to label Saddam Hussein as a psychopath because the good doctor had never had the opportunity to personally interview Mr. Hussein, but operationally we do not have the luxury of picking at nits when dealing with mass murderers.  The more rapidly a mass murderer's activities are terminated, the better.  As a catastrophic example, historians tell us that Hitler's murderous career could have been stopped early with minimal effort, but no one recognized at the time what a psychopath was or that Hitler was a functional psychopath.  Recall that militant Islam has been murdering and enslaving their opponents for fifteen centuries, and Marxists have been similarly active for fifteen decades.

The psychopath's need for control is complemented by the need or willingness of some people to be controlled, leading to mindless herd behaviors.  This herd behavior was evident in Germany in the 1930s when a cultured and technically advanced society fell victim to a basic non-entity, psychopathic Hitler.  The social and economic traumas of the Weimar Republic era contributed to the need for some Germans to welcome Hitler's control.

The two principal surviving world psychopathic systems are Marxism in its various manifestations including Putinism, and militant Islam in its diverse forms.  Individual psychopaths are basically incurable, and within psychopathic systems, a deceased or deposed psychopath is soon replaced by an equally odious psychopath.  The only times in recent history that psychopathic states were actually transformed into stable productive societies, at very great cost, were France at the time of Napoleon and Germany and Japan after WWII.  This was accomplished by forcefully eliminating psychopaths and their enablers, and disabusing their gullible and delusional followers.  Historically, nothing else has worked, though an adult solution to psychopathic behavior is much to be desired.

Both current psychopathic systems have underlying psychological characteristics but uniquely individual actions, often fitting into similar patterns according to the dominant ideology: "religious" Islam or "economic" Marxism.  Another major factor is the Marxists’ possession of nuclear weapons and the Islamists’ pursuit of nuclear weapons.  Each pattern must therefore be considered separately.

Given the above, defeating Islamist political psychopaths is situational:

International conventions such as the United Nations Charter and the Geneva Conventions are intended to reduce the risks and effects of conflict.  Militant Islamists (and Marxists) routinely ignore rules they find inconvenient, and our rules become restraints on our behavior without accomplishing the intended results.  When psychopaths are sufficiently emboldened to start a war, we then ignore our own rules (Dresden, Hiroshima) and only then are psychopathic dictators stopped.  It seems perverse to observe the rules until an existential crisis is upon us, when we could have prevented the crisis early at much less cost by recognizing and acting when psychopaths threaten.

Enlist the more stable Islamic states in the effort to defeat terrorists; Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have been eager to minimize terrorism, particularly in their own states.  President Obama is upsetting to our natural allies as he negotiates with Iran, the preeminent terrorist-supporting state.

Insofar as possible, never negotiate with or concede anything to a psychopath.  It is not only a waste of time, it limits your ability to influence the great majority of Muslims who are not psychopathic.  For a psychopath, negotiation is a means of limiting your actions while the psychopath freely continues his own hostile actions.  The many negotiations with the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas parties have been going on for decades with zero progress while the West subsidizes Palestinians as they practice terrorism; this is just one example of such futile actions.  The current negotiations with Iran are a dangerous farce.

Iran and Syria are the two main instigators of Muslim terrorist actions.  Removing the psychopathic leadership of such states disrupts the mal-formed psychopathic social structure.  Do not deal with the psychopathic leadership, eliminate it and deal with the citizens, most of whom are not psychopathic.  Technical advances in intelligence and in ordnance facilitate the elimination of psychopathic leadership.  Germany and Japan became non-psychopathic and commendable members of the community of nations after the psychopathic leadership was terminated in 1945. 

Attack the head-psychopath-in-charge of belligerent Islamic states with all the means at your disposal: information, propaganda, financial tools, etc.  If armed force is required, take out the psychopathic leadership as soon as possible.  Be prepared to stabilize a defeated psychopathic state such as Iraq for long periods, just as Germany and Japan were occupied for decades.  Forcibly eliminate corruption in defeated psychopathic states.  Do not destabilize one psychopathic regime such as Saddam's and replace it with another equally psychopathic regime.

"Lone wolf" terrorists are inspired by psychopaths, and removal of psychopathic leadership discourages the lone wolf.  We have already seen that terrorist recruits are generated more rapidly than individual terrorists and suicide bombers can be neutralized. 

To defeat Marxist psychopaths:

Nuclear weapons precluded direct confrontation between the West and either Russia or China, which resulted in an uneasy stability between the West and the Marxist states for decades.  The Soviet Union eventually died of psychopathic incompetence and corruption, only to have Russia revive under Putin. 

Russia's demographics, economy, and infrastructure are weak, and Russia has a corrupt, third-world economy based primarily on extractive mineral resources externally and vodka internally.  Russia will collapse again and the collapse will be accelerated by American entrepreneurs and their fracking technology, plus the sanctions on Russia after their psychopathic invasion of Georgia and the Crimea.  When the second collapse occurs, make sure that psychopathic leadership is not resumed, as recently happened in Russia, and has occurred frequently among psychopathic militant Islamists for fifteen centuries. 

Use all means available to limit illegal territorial grabs by Russia and China and maintain a strong American and Western defense. 

China's material progress since Nixon's visit has been remarkable, but China has continuing problems with psychopathic corruption, demographic imbalances, industrial pollution, and financial distortions in real estate and banking.  China is in one of the world's greatest economic bubbles comparable to the Japanese Bubble of 1991, and all bubbles pop at some point.  When the China bubble pops, psychopathic leadership should be terminated as a condition of economic support during recovery. 

Psychopaths are rational but lacking in conscience.  China will probably follow the Soviet Union example in avoiding mutual nuclear destruction.  All bets are off if anyone anywhere goes nuclear.

For both Marxist and militant Islamic systems, corruption is fundamental to the continuation of the psychopathic state.  Corruption commonly takes the form of taking from out-of-favor groups and giving to the psychopath's supporters as the psychopath and his enablers take a major portion of the loot for themselves.  In the Soviet Union, the privileged leadership was known as the nomenclatura, and they had much better access to goods and services than the rest of the Russian people.  Among militant Islamist, it is the "religious" leaders that are similarly privileged. 

The cost of psychopathy, the world's worst and most destructive mental disorder, has been horrendous down through the ages.  We now have the tools to identify and curtail the activities of psychopaths, domestic and foreign. 

James G. Long has been an army captain, a professional engineer, an author, and a blogger, with a lifelong interest in organizational management problems.  mandynamerica.com/blog/