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Being crazy gets you leverage on the negotiation table. Seeming measured and rational and restrained oftentimes gets you into trouble. See Jimmy Carter and the

Being crazy gets you leverage on the negotiation table. Seeming measured and rational and restrained oftentimes gets you into trouble. See Jimmy Carter and the Iran hostage crisis, for instance. There's no way that'd happen under a more aggressive President, like FDR or Nixon or GW. As the Romans said - "Si vis pacem, para bellum." - "If you wish peace, prepare for war." Pacifistic, restrained military and civilian leadership paradoxically can invite violence against you.

b-man 16y ago
Being crazy gets you leverage on the negotiation table. Seeming measured and rational and restrained oftentimes gets you into trouble. See Jimmy Carter and the Iran hostage crisis, for instance. There's no way that'd happen under a more aggressive President, like FDR or Nixon or GW. [citation needed]
- jon_hendry 16y ago
  See: Kim Jong-Il
  - b-man 16y ago
    I was thinking more in these terms: ... the entire "madman theory" of coercion was flawed in its essence, depending as it did on twisted logic that assumed an adversary would respond to a calculated show of irrationality with something other than irrationality of its own. [1] [1] http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0614-20.htm http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0614-20.htm In that article you can see what kind of danger unchecked assumptions and arrogance can lead people into, specially when these traits are carried by people with access to WMD.
arethuza 16y ago
Even Curtis Le May was worried about the psychological state of General Powers describing him as "not stable" and a "sadist". There is credible deterrence and there is dangerous lunacy - Powers appears to have been uncomfortably close to the latter. Especially when he was wanting to initiate a strike which would probably have killed rather more than a billion people.
cafard 16y ago
FDR? Well, yes and no. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the Germans, without really needing to, went ahead and declared war a couple of days later. And North Korea went ahead and invaded the south even though everybody knew that Harry Truman had OKed dropping atomic weapons...

b-man 16y ago

jon_hendry 16y ago
See: Kim Jong-Il
- b-man 16y ago
  I was thinking more in these terms: ... the entire "madman theory" of coercion was flawed in its essence, depending as it did on twisted logic that assumed an adversary would respond to a calculated show of irrationality with something other than irrationality of its own. [1] [1] http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0614-20.htm http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0614-20.htm In that article you can see what kind of danger unchecked assumptions and arrogance can lead people into, specially when these traits are carried by people with access to WMD.

arethuza 16y ago

Even Curtis Le May was worried about the psychological state of General Powers describing him as "not stable" and a "sadist". There is credible deterrence and there is dangerous lunacy - Powers appears to have been uncomfortably close to the latter. Especially when he was wanting to initiate a strike which would probably have killed rather more than a billion people.

cafard 16y ago

FDR? Well, yes and no. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the Germans, without really needing to, went ahead and declared war a couple of days later. And North Korea went ahead and invaded the south even though everybody knew that Harry Truman had OKed dropping atomic weapons...