HarryShearer.com

Way back in the Memory Hole, Republican President Richard Nixon was, with the aid of Henry Kissinger, running American foreign policy. This was the middle of the Cold War and the United States was jousting with the Soviet Union as well as involved in a hot war with North Vietnam. Analysts of the Nixon regime described his approach to international relations as influenced by “The Madman Theory”.

That theory was simple, and based on the analogy of two automobiles racing towards each other at high speed. Each driver was daring the other to turn away first, to avoid a mutually destructive accident. In that situation, one driver could gain the advantage by showing he was the crazier of the two, by throwing his steering wheel out of the car, thus forcing his opponent to veer away.

So Nixon would do things that seemed rash or irrational to identify himself as the Madman, forcing the Commies to back down lest nuclear war break out.

It all seems quaint in the face of the modern situation, in which our current President is fighting a war basically with apocalyptic proclamations—”end your civilization”, “economic D-Day”—while spending more of his time on construction (or destruction) projects and wacky trade wars. This pattern of behavior might convince foreign friends and foes alike that the occupant of the White House was behaving according to the precepts of the Madman Theory.

But they could very well be mistaken. There just might be no Theory involved.