The top of the US Armed Forces received a surprising order in October 1969: to intensify its preparations for a possible conflict with the Soviet Union.
Pentagon B-52 bombers were loaded with nuclear weapons, of which 18 took off from the west coast of the United States. They crossed Alaska and flew close to Soviet territory before returning.
This nuclear warning was ordered by then-US President Richard Nixon (1969-1974) and was carried out in secret, although it seemed inevitable that Moscow and its allies would observe US action.
In the midst of the Cold War and stuck in the Vietnam War, Nixon aimed to convince his enemies that he was willing to use excessive, even nuclear, force. Chief of Staff HR Haldeman explained how, years later, Nixon explained this action: “I call it the ‘mad theory'”.
Many people have remembered this historic moment in recent weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin put his nuclear deterrents on alert after invading Ukraine in February.
But what is madman theory and what are the results of the leaders who put it into practice?
“Nuclear Button”
Experts note that the antecedents of this strategy can be traced back five centuries, when Niccolò Machiavelli wrote that “sometimes it’s too clever to simulate madness.”
In the modern era, the theory was introduced in 1959 by former American military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, a nuclear strategist. He would later become known for leaking secret US documents about the Vietnam War, known as the Pentagon Papers, in 1971.
Ellsberg argued that if a nation’s leader was seen as insane by others, he could make more effective threats to another nation.
But according to the book, it was Nixon who created the name “the theory of the madman.” Power’s Ends (“The Goals of Power” in its free translation) was written by former chief of staff Haldeman after he was discredited by the Watergate scandal.
According to Haldeman, the president later spoke of spreading the rumor that he was obsessed with communism, that his nerves were uncontrollable, and that he always had “his hand on the nuclear button.”
“I want the North Vietnamese to believe they have reached the point where I will do whatever it takes to win the war,” Nixon told Haldeman.
Since assuming the presidency in January 1969 with Henry Kissinger as national security adviser, Nixon had sought to end the war against the socialist government of North Vietnam on terms that favored the United States.
“Probably, [Nixon] They believed that if they thought they were heading towards insanity, they would do anything to end the war, even use nuclear weapons, according to Roseanne McManus, a professor of political science and international relations at Pennsylvania State University. she is currently writing a book on the theory of the mad.
But if that was the gamble, the outcome was different from what Nixon wanted. “It seems that the Soviets and their North Vietnamese allies did not notice that he was trying to show signs of insanity, or that they did not believe he was truly insane,” McManus told BBC News Mundo (the BBC’s Spanish-language service). .
The professor added that this was because Nixon was cautious in other interactions with the Soviets, which may have made his tactics for Vietnam less convincing.
double edged sword
It is difficult to know exactly what is real and what is suspicious about Nixon’s behavior.
The documents revealed by the USA underline that at that time the White House was considering the option of using nuclear weapons against North Vietnam. But Nixon said years later he set aside that option to prevent the escalation of mass warfare.
Indeed, credibility can be a double-edged sword for madman theory. “If the leader can communicate that he is limited to a particular topic, he can sometimes succeed,” says McManus, an analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
But if people believe he’s totally insane, disconnected from reality, or wants to rule the world, it’s going to be harder to succeed because people will worry more about the future,” he continues. “It is very difficult to promise peace to someone who has a reputation for extreme insanity.”
Indeed, McManus’ research highlights that the madman theory is often ineffective. Other former leaders considered unstable, such as Soviet Nikita Khrushchev, Libyan Muammar Gaddafi, and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, also failed to achieve positive results.
On the other hand, he cites Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as an atypical case of someone taking advantage of the international image of insanity to succeed in invading former Czechoslovakia in 1938. World.
More recently, when former US President Donald Trump warned in 2017 that North Korea would respond with “fire and fury” if it threatened the United States, he raised suspicions of using the madman theory against North Korea. Trump later met face-to-face with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un – the first meeting between the two countries’ leaders in 70 years – but Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal continued to grow.
Several analysts have compared Putin’s behavior during the invasion of Ukraine to the actions of Nixon and Khrushchev. But McManus argues that in the face of high-risk situations, the two former leaders reacted cautiously, no matter how hard they tried to pretend to be insane. According to him, the situation is not the same now.
“In Putin’s case, he has already done something very costly and many people will consider it a huge strategic mistake,” he adds.
source: Noticias
