Madman Theory

Based on Wikipedia: Madman theory

In October 1969, eighteen B-52 bombers armed with thermonuclear weapons flew in patterns near the Soviet border for three consecutive days. Most Americans had no idea this was happening. The operation, codenamed "Giant Lance," was designed to terrify Soviet leaders into believing that President Richard Nixon had lost his mind and might actually start a nuclear war.

This was the madman theory in action.

The core idea is elegantly perverse: convince your enemies that you're irrational enough to do something catastrophically self-destructive, and they'll give you what you want rather than risk finding out if you're bluffing. It's the geopolitical equivalent of holding a grenade with the pin pulled and announcing that your hand gets tired sometimes.

The Logic of Feigned Madness

To understand why this strategy emerged, you need to appreciate a peculiar problem that haunted Cold War strategists. By the 1960s, both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed enough nuclear weapons to destroy each other many times over—a condition aptly named "mutually assured destruction," or MAD. Under these circumstances, threatening nuclear war over anything less than an existential attack seemed absurd. If both sides knew that using nuclear weapons meant annihilation for everyone, then nuclear threats became hollow.

Here's where the madman theory enters. A rational leader's nuclear threats can be easily dismissed because everyone knows a rational person wouldn't commit suicide over, say, trade disputes or border skirmishes. But what if the leader isn't rational? What if he's obsessed, unhinged, capable of anything?

Suddenly those threats become terrifyingly credible.

The idea wasn't entirely new. Back in 1517, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote in his Discourses on Livy that "it is a very wise thing to simulate madness." Four and a half centuries later, futurist Herman Kahn elaborated on the concept in his 1962 book Thinking About the Unthinkable, arguing that appearing "a little crazy" could effectively induce an adversary to back down.

Nixon's Grand Experiment

Richard Nixon embraced this theory with enthusiasm. According to his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman, Nixon once explained his approach with startling candor:

I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that, "for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button" and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.

Ho Chi Minh did not, in fact, show up in Paris begging for peace. The Vietnam War dragged on for years.

Nixon's administration employed the madman strategy in multiple ways. Beyond the terrifying Operation Giant Lance, they staged a global military readiness alert known as the "Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test" in October 1969. The idea was to signal to the Soviets that the madman was loose—that Nixon might be crazy enough to escalate beyond all reason.

There may have been more conventional explanations for some of these moves. The U.S. State Department has suggested the readiness test was actually designed to deter a possible Soviet nuclear strike against the People's Republic of China, which the Soviets were then in bitter conflict with. But the dual-use nature of these signals was perhaps the point—keeping everyone guessing.

In July 1969, according to a CIA report declassified in 2018, Nixon apparently suggested to South Vietnamese president Nguyễn Văn Thiệu that he was considering two paths forward: either using nuclear weapons or establishing a coalition government. Whether Nixon was serious or simply reinforcing his mad reputation remains unclear. The 1970 incursion into Cambodia, according to historian Michael S. Sherry, was also part of this broader strategy to incentivize negotiations through unpredictable escalation.

The Problem with Pretending to Be Crazy

International relations scholars have been deeply skeptical of the madman theory. Their skepticism is well-founded: it almost never works.

The historical record is littered with failed madmen. Nixon didn't win in Vietnam. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who cultivated his own image as dangerously unpredictable—Secretary of State John Foster Dulles once said Khrushchev "could be expected to commit irrational acts" and was "essentially emotional"—didn't achieve his strategic objectives in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Saddam Hussein's posturing didn't save his regime. Muammar Gaddafi's erratic behavior ended with him dragged from a drainage pipe by rebel fighters.

Why doesn't it work? Scholars have identified several fundamental problems.

First, there's the credibility paradox. Convincing sophisticated adversaries that you're genuinely irrational is extraordinarily difficult. World leaders aren't typically selected for their instability, and everyone knows it. Your enemies know you have advisors, institutions, checks and balances. They know that launching a nuclear war would destroy your own country. So they're inclined to discount your crazy act as exactly that—an act.

Second, madness creates a commitment problem. Even if you convince your adversary that you're unpredictable, you've also convinced them that you can't be trusted to keep promises. Why would they yield to your demands if they believe you're too irrational to honor any agreement? A genuine madman might punish compliance as easily as defiance. This makes the opponent more likely to dig in rather than negotiate.

Third, there's the signaling problem. Political scientists Scott Sagan and Jeremi Suri have argued that Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev simply didn't understand what Nixon was trying to communicate with his nuclear posturing. The message got lost in translation, interpreted as routine military exercises or defensive preparations rather than a warning of imminent madness.

Fourth, there are domestic costs. Political scientist Joshua A. Schwartz points out that appearing unstable erodes your support at home. Congressional leaders, military officials, and the public all become less cooperative when they think the president might be losing his grip on reality. These domestic constraints can actually weaken your bargaining position.

The Trump Era: Madman Theory Goes Explicit

Donald Trump has been perhaps the most interesting case study in madman theory since Nixon—partly because he has explicitly endorsed the approach rather than merely practicing it.

During trade negotiations with South Korea over the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement, Trump reportedly told his negotiators to warn South Korean diplomats that "if they don't give the concessions now, this crazy guy will pull out of the deal." Journalist Jonathan Swan of Axios characterized this as a textbook "madman" approach to international relations.

There's evidence the approach occasionally produced results. The release of American pastor Andrew Brunson from Turkish detention in 2018 came after Trump threatened devastating consequences for Turkey's economy. Trump's unpredictability may have convinced Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that the threat was serious.

But critics identified crucial weaknesses in Trump's version of the strategy. Writing in the New York Times, Jonathan Stevenson argued that Nixon's madman act worked (to the limited extent it did) because Nixon implied he'd been pushed too far—suggesting he would return to his senses if his adversaries gave in. This gave opponents an off-ramp. Trump's threats, by contrast, appeared to be "standard operating procedure," not a temporary emotional reaction. Why would adversaries believe he'd calm down if they complied when anger and threats were his constant baseline?

International relations scholar Roseanne McManus identified an even more fundamental problem: Trump kept telling people he was using madman theory. In various interviews and statements, he essentially explained that his unpredictability was a deliberate strategy. But the whole premise of madman theory requires your opponents to believe you're genuinely irrational. If you announce that your craziness is calculated, you've revealed that you're actually rational—and thus your threats can be safely ignored.

It's like a poker player loudly explaining that he's going to bluff.

Putin and the Nuclear Shadow

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered perhaps the most consequential modern application of madman theory, particularly in the lead-up to and during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Even before the invasion, observers noted Putin's nuclear posturing. In 2015, Stanford professor Martin Hellman observed that "nuclear weapons are the card that Putin has up his sleeve, and he's using it to get the world to realize that Russia is a superpower, not just a regional power." Hellman argued that Western leaders hadn't properly understood what Putin was doing.

As the invasion approached in early 2022, Putin's behavior grew more alarming. He published lengthy, rambling essays about Ukrainian and Russian history. He announced nuclear weapons exercises. Reports emerged of his increasing isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, with suggestions he was growing paranoid and detached from reality. Was this genuine deterioration or calculated theater?

Writing in the Financial Times just days before the invasion, columnist Gideon Rachman tried to parse the distinction. Putin, he argued, "is ruthless and amoral. But he is also shrewd and calculating. He takes risks, but he is not crazy." Rachman compared Putin's recent behavior to his more rational actions over the previous twenty years. But then came the chilling observation: "the line between acting like a madman and being a madman is disconcertingly thin."

Once the invasion began, Putin escalated further. He ordered Russian nuclear forces to "special alert" status. His public statements grew wilder—he branded Ukraine's democratically elected government as "drug-addicted neo-Nazis," claims so bizarre they raised doubts even among supportive Russians about his mental state.

Paul Taylor of Politico speculated that Putin was engaging in deliberate madman strategy, "swinging wildly from seeming openness to negotiations to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on four fronts, while threatening the world with mass destruction." The nuclear threats, in this interpretation, were designed to deter Western intervention by suggesting Putin might genuinely risk apocalyptic escalation.

The strategy appeared to work, at least in part. Western nations have been notably cautious about direct involvement in Ukraine, repeatedly citing concerns about escalation. Whether this caution stems from rational assessment of Putin's capabilities or from fear that he might actually be mad enough to use nuclear weapons remains unclear—which is, of course, exactly the ambiguity Putin seems to cultivate.

The Dangerous Gamble

Political scientists Samuel Seitz and Caitlin Talmadge have offered perhaps the most comprehensive critique of madman theory. "The historical record, both before Trump's presidency and during it," they write, "demonstrates that madman tactics typically fail to strengthen deterrence or generate bargaining leverage."

They identify three main reasons for failure. First, target states frequently fail to receive the message the "madman" thinks he's sending. International communication is noisy, filtered through intelligence agencies, diplomats, and media. What seems like a clear signal of dangerous instability might be interpreted as domestic political theater or bureaucratic confusion.

Second, even when the message gets through, target states often don't find the "madman" behavior credible. They know the leader has advisors, that institutions exist, that there are limits to how crazy any functioning government can be. The performance is recognized as performance.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, target states frequently refuse to yield even when they do believe the madman rhetoric—precisely because a genuine madman cannot make credible promises about future behavior. Why give in to someone who might punish you anyway?

Beyond its effectiveness as a strategy, madman theory carries profound risks. Sagan and Suri have emphasized the danger of accidents. When one side engages in threatening military maneuvers to seem unpredictable, the other side may misinterpret routine activities as preparation for attack. The chance of accidental war increases dramatically. During Nixon's nuclear posturing, American forces were on heightened alert for days—any number of technical failures or misunderstandings could have triggered catastrophe.

The same concerns apply to interactions with North Korea during periods of heightened tension. When both sides are engaged in provocative behavior to demonstrate resolve, the margin for error shrinks dangerously.

The Thin Line

Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of madman theory is the question Rachman raised about Putin: where exactly is the line between acting like a madman and being one?

A leader who consistently behaves irrationally, makes threats his subordinates struggle to walk back, and surrounds himself with people who reinforce rather than challenge his worst impulses, may gradually lose the ability to distinguish strategic craziness from genuine instability. The performance can become the reality.

Moreover, the theory assumes that appearing mad is separable from being mad—that a leader can don and remove the mask of irrationality at will. But governing as though you might do anything requires creating the institutional conditions for doing anything. It means removing advisors who counsel restraint, weakening checks on executive power, and cultivating an environment where extreme options remain on the table. Over time, these changes reshape what's actually possible.

Scholar Roseanne McManus has found that some forms of apparent "madness" can indeed provide bargaining advantages, while others prove counterproductive. The key distinction seems to be between strategic unpredictability (keeping adversaries uncertain about your next move) and genuine instability (appearing to lack control over your own decisions). The former can be useful; the latter frightens everyone, including potential partners, and makes cooperation nearly impossible.

But maintaining that distinction requires exquisite calibration. How do you appear unpredictable enough to worry your enemies while remaining predictable enough to reassure your allies? How do you signal that you might do something crazy while maintaining the trust necessary for diplomacy? The madman walks a razor's edge, and history suggests most of them eventually fall off.

In the end, madman theory may tell us less about effective strategy than about the anxieties of the nuclear age. When the stakes are total annihilation, and when rational calculation leads to the conclusion that neither side can actually use its most powerful weapons, there's a terrible temptation to believe that irrationality might provide an advantage. But irrationality is a dangerous ally. It cannot be controlled, it cannot be turned on and off, and its consequences cannot be predicted.

That, after all, is what makes it irrational.