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COMPARISONS can be odious, unless there is a justification. Consider these two examples.
On Sept 30, 2025, President Donald Trump and his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth summoned almost 800 US generals, admirals and senior enlisted officers to the Marine Corps Base Quantico. The civilian duo harangued the uniformed, be-medalled corps — men and women, white and black, bearded and clean-shaven, fit and fat. Gradually, painfully, the top brass of the US armed forces saw their authority undermined in public and their qualifications questioned by persons less qualified than themselves. One wonders what went through their minds as they heard their commander-in-chief and his war secretary strip them of their stripes.
In early 1972, Z.A. Bhutto summoned a group of dispossessed industrialists to Midway House, Karachi. Earlier, overnight, he had nationalised their businesses and industries. He reminded those who had neglected to read his PPP manifesto that he was merely fulfilling an electoral promise to his people. He ended his wounding speech with the condescending sneer: “Give my love to your children.”
Both assemblies in Quantico and Karachi had less to do with elective politics than with the assertion of dominance by alpha males within a social hierarchy. (Alpha males are identified as those members of a group who seek to dominate others and then use different strategies to gain and retain their primacy.)
Humans and apes have the same instinct.
Humans and apes have the same instinct. That isn’t surprising. Chimpanzees share about 97 per cent of the same DNA with humans. Ethologists like Jane Goodall, who died recently after a lifetime studying chimpanzees in the wild, confirm that man is not the only ‘toolmaking’ species on earth. “We must now redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human!” the anthropologist Louis Leakey wrote in a tribute to Goodall’s research.
How close is mankind to chimpanzees? Too close for comfort, as Goodall explained in her 2021 TED talk: “When I see two chimpanzee males bristling, swaggering upright, a furious scowl on their faces, using intimidation tactics … it reminds me just exactly of some human male politicians. They do the same.” When asked why she singled out male politicians, she replied: “I don’t think human female politicians use the same tactics … I’m thinking of the 2016 election when Hillary Clinton was talking, and Donald Trump was kind of looming, threatening, swaggering, that was so chimpanzee-like.”
World leadership today is overcrowded with alpha males. Some have remained uninterruptedly in power since they be-straddled their countries: Tajikistan’s Emomali Rahmon, since 1994; Russia’s Vladimir Putin, since 1999; Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev, since 2003; Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, also since 2003; and China’s Xi Jinping, since 2012. But no alpha male continuity can match North Korea’s dynastic leadership: Kim Il Sung, 1948-1994; his son Kim Jong Il, 1994-2011; and now his grandson Kim Jong Un.
The relationship between Trump and Kim Jong Un has oscillated between contempt and camaraderie. Eight years ago, Trump dismissed Kim Jong Un as “a Rocket Man on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime”. Kim retaliated by calling Trump “a mentally deranged US dotard”. Later, they met in person three times, after which Trump melted, describing Kim as “a great personality and very smart … a worthy negotiator”. He gushed about the “fantastic chemistry” between them, and admitted at a political rally that, after exchanging letters with the North Korean leader, they “fell in love”.
The US top brass has kept itself aware of Trump’s wayward affections for their erstwhile enemies Kim and Putin. The Pentagon always monitors every US president because he is commander-in-chief of its forces. For example, in July 1971, president Nixon discovered after Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing, that the Pentagon had planted a naval yeoman Charles Radford in Kissinger’s staff. Radford provided the Pentagon with details of Kissinger’s secret conversations with Zhou Enlai, even before Nixon could read their transcripts.
Nowadays, it seems alpha males rule everywhere, supreme over passive subservience. Dr Goodall, during her studies of chimpanzees, noticed that beta males admitted defeat in a ritual act of surrender. Once, when she accidentally knocked an alpha male chimpanzee with her elbow, he immediately raised his rump to her, because to him, she was bigger and stronger. He conceded to her as the new alpha male.
Countries behave no differently. At a time when alpha males control our destiny and the threat of a nuclear holocaust moves closer from possibility to probability, we should not ignore Goodall’s warning: “Here we are, the most clever species ever to have lived. So how is it we can destroy the only planet we have?”
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2025
