An Oxford expert explores the uncomfortable reality of Machiavellian principles in warfare and strategy, examining historical figures and contemporary examples where pragmatic, often ruthless, tactics have been employed to acquire and maintain power, while also acknowledging the ethical complexities and potential pitfalls of such an approach.

His piece delves into authentic self-confidence, not the brittle facade of ego, but the strength to confront reality and admit imperfections. It highlights how past resilience, inner dialogue, and a focus on outcome over personal validation build genuine confidence that weathers challenges and allows us to adapt, learn, and ultimately, succeed.

This explores the counterintuitive yet highly effective strategy of “Negotiate While Advancing,” treating negotiation not as a separate peaceful realm but as a continuation of conflict. By maintaining pressure and projecting strength, even when weak, you can dictate terms and secure your interests, much like a warrior manoeuvres on the battlefield.

Feeling adrift at 40? This article applies the strategic wisdom of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz to navigate the challenges of mid-life stagnation. While Sun Tzu offers subtle manoeuvring tactics, Clausewitz’s realism on “friction” and uncertainty provides a more potent framework for confronting life’s inherent difficulties and defining your purpose. Embrace the mess, expect setbacks, and persist in fighting for the life you genuinely desire.

This blog post, aimed at men aged 40+, draws on insights from philosophy and military strategy to address feelings of stagnation and lack of direction in midlife. It argues that self-control, the ability to manage emotions rather than being controlled by them, is key to navigating this period. Using metaphors of a ship at sea and battlefield tactics, it emphasises that true success comes not from constant excitement but from disciplined persistence and the conscious choice to steer one’s own course despite emotional turbulence.

Feeling stuck and directionless in your 40s? Stop fighting head-on battles against mid-life stagnation – that’s attrition warfare and it’s a waste of energy. Instead, embrace the ancient art of manoeuvre. This newsletter explores how strategic positioning, flexible planning, creating dilemmas, and calculated disorder can help you navigate challenges with ease, leading to renewed purpose and “easy victories” by outsmarting the predictable forces holding you back. It’s time to be smarter, not just tougher.

This article uses the lens of modern military strategy to help men over 40 navigate feelings of stagnation and find renewed purpose. Drawing parallels between evolving warfare tactics (hybrid, information, cyber) and the challenges of middle age, it provides a frank and actionable framework for conducting a personal strategic review and launching a multi-pronged "offensive" against inertia, focusing on mental, physical, and emotional "logistics."

Feeling stuck at forty? This isn't the end game, but a critical phase for strategic repositioning. Learn to conduct a brutal self-assessment, identifying your strengths and vulnerabilities, just like a military strategist. Honest self-knowledge, including admitting what you don't know, is the key to overcoming inertia and launching a renewed offensive in life. Stop operating on default and take command of your next chapter.

Drawing parallels between the Zulu war strategy of envelopment and the challenges of middle-aged stagnation, this piece argues that feeling trapped and lacking options is a form of psychological encirclement. The key to overcoming this inertia is to proactively apply a similar strategy in reverse: scouting for hidden opportunities, using your strengths to expand your reach, keeping major ambitions in reserve for strategic impact, and ultimately, creating a new framework to break free from the predictable pattern. By constantly probing, challenging the status quo, and making "stagnation" feel surrounded, one can reclaim a sense of possibility and defeat the psychological grip of being stuck.

Drawing parallels from the historical strategies of Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill in the face of Nazi Germany, this piece challenges men in their 40s and 50s to confront midlife stagnation not with passive appeasement, but with active rearmament and defiance. It argues that avoiding discomfort and difficulty in life, much like Chamberlain's policy of appeasement, ultimately emboldens the "threats" of dissatisfaction and unrealised potential, leading to decline. Instead, it advocates for a Churchillian approach: facing reality, investing in personal "rearmament" (skills, health, purpose), setting boundaries, and finding one's voice to fight for a more fulfilling future.

This piece tackles the common experience of facing stagnation in middle age (40+), arguing that a key to overcoming it lies in embracing radical self-accountability. It draws on principles of personal responsibility, highlighting how blaming external factors and succumbing to a victim mentality prevents progress. The core message is that while you can't control every circumstance, you always control your response, and focusing on this empowers you to find solutions and move forward.

Written from the perspective of an Oxford professor and military strategist, applies the principle of attacking the 'soft flank' from military history to the challenges faced by men in their 40s and beyond who feel stuck or stagnant. It argues against direct, frontal assaults on life's problems and relationships, which often lead to increased resistance and exhaustion. Instead, it advocates for indirect approaches like strategic kindness, subtle manoeuvres, and identifying ignored passions or new angles to disrupt predictability and achieve lasting results.

Midlife Stagnation as Hybrid Warfare: The feeling of being stuck or dissatisfied in middle age isn't usually a sudden, dramatic event, but a slower, more insidious process akin to modern hybrid or cyber warfare. It lacks a clear declaration of crisis and operates in the blurred lines between apparent "peace" and internal conflict. Internal Infrastructure Under Attack: Just as cyber-attacks target crucial civilian infrastructure (power grids, communications), midlife stagnation erodes vital personal "systems" like energy levels, motivation, and sense of purpose. These are subtle but critical targets. Asymmetry of Inner Conflict: The internal voice of doubt or apathy might seem small and low-cost, but it can have a disproportionately high impact, hindering initiative and leading to significant long-term dissatisfaction, much like a low-cost cyber-attack causing widespread disruption. Need for Evolved Tactics: Traditional, "brute force" approaches or simply ignoring the problem (like relying on outdated WWI tactics) are ineffective against this modern form of internal "conflict." Navigating midlife requires adapting strategies, much like modern militaries have had to evolve from trench warfare to cyber and information warfare. Actionable Takeaways: The solution lies in recognising the subtle nature of the challenge, actively protecting personal "infrastructure" (well-being, energy), and employing "asymmetric defence" – small, consistent actions that cumulatively shift the balance.

The passage argues that stagnation, particularly in men over 40, isn't always a failure of willpower but often a consequence of deeply ingrained default behaviours or "algorithms" programmed by evolution, culture, and environment. It highlights that spending time with certain communities influences these defaults, and breaking negative habits or forming positive ones is significantly easier when the surrounding environment encourages the desired behaviour. The core strategy for change, therefore, is not relentless willpower but the deliberate creation of an environment where positive actions become automatic defaults.

The core principle is that everyone and everything, including a feeling of personal stagnation, has a hidden "centre of gravity" - the vital source of power or support that holds it together. Conventional thinking focuses on superficial aspects or direct confrontation. However, true strategic effectiveness, whether in military conflict or personal life, lies in identifying and targeting this often-invisible centre. By understanding what truly underpins the structure or problem, you can inflict disproportionate damage and achieve a decisive outcome, rather than merely trading blows with the symptoms. This requires looking beyond the obvious, peeling back layers, and adapting your approach to the enemy's (or your own inertia's) specific vulnerabilities, which can be material, psychological, or even abstract.