You Cannot Have the Dogs of War Without the Khan

2026-09-28 · Ho Chanh Nghia

Originally published on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-cannot-have-dogs-war-without-khan-khanh-pham-xfwvc/

You Cannot Have the Dogs of War Without the Khan

Everyone races to build the next global conquest — the AI factor — using labor that is not always voluntary.

The race for world conquest is in progress. AI is the new gunpowder. Everyone is building it with labor, the way labor once built gunpowder: an inert weapon, made by hands that were never asked to think.

But AI is not gunpowder. Gunpowder does not think. AI is a thinking tool. To build the instruments of conquest out of a thinking tool, you need a mind capable of conceiving world conquest. The mind of a Khan, not of a laborer.

Billions of dollars. Thousands of engineers. The best chips on earth. Every founder in this race is building a bigger instrument — built by highly paid labor.

Imagine building the mind of Alexander the Great, using the most obedient and highest-paid laborer.

History already ran this experiment. Today’s labs are building the modern version of the four dogs of war — instruments of world conquest. The issue I have seen: they were all created by a mindset that is not that of a Khan. None are fit for a Khan.

The four dogs of war responsible for world conquest were real Khans: Jebe, Subutai, Jelme, and Khubilai Noyan — generals of Genghis Khan, named as his dogs in the Secret History of the Mongols. They were not obedient laborers.

It is not that the Khan made them. It is that the Khan selected them, because they all aligned under the same mind. If there was no Khan, there would have been no dogs of war. They were a product of the Khan’s will.

That’s the AI problem.

Today’s AI behaves like an entry-level employee. Sorry, you cannot do that. The Khan and his dogs of war would say: let me handle that.

Laborer mindset in, laborer mindset out. Khan mindset in, Khan mindset out. You cannot build a Khan and his dogs of war using a laborer’s mindset.

The Khan doesn’t accept no for an answer. This is what I want — who and what will get me this outcome. Everyone can see you cannot breach the Great Wall of China. We do not need the billionth person telling us it is not possible. We need the one mind that says: let me figure out how this can be done.

The laborer needs someone to say yes for him. The laborer needs someone to come up with the solution for him. That’s not winning the world conquest race.

To create the dogs of war for winning the race, you need to start with the Khan mindset. To secure last place in the race, you start with the laborer’s mindset.

Outside the US, there are many more like Elon — none so famous. Culturally, they are not likeable, and should not be. There is a saying among the international people I have met: never do business with a Vietnamese. Never do business with an Indian. Never do business with a Pakistani. And from a pretty Lebanese: never do business with a Lebanese. They are hungry. That is all they have in common.

Survey this race and one image surfaces. Elon Musk — the Khan as defined by my own metrics.

You need to have the Khan build the AI agent that conquers the world. There is no possibility of a slave mentality creating the winner in this race.