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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDonald Trump embraces the risky 'Madman Theory' on foreign policy
(emphasis not added)
By James Hohmann December 20 at 11:05 AM
With Breanne Deppisch
THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump appears to have embraced, with gusto, Richard Nixons Madman Theory of foreign policy. He thinks he can use his reputation for unpredictability and lack of respect for long-standing international norms to unnerve and then intimidate Americas adversaries into making concessions that they would not otherwise make.
The Chinese governments decision yesterday to return the naval drone that it had seized in the South China Sea, despite howls of protest about Trumps braggadocio, might be the first vindication of this approach.
-- A generation ago, Nixon wanted to convince the Soviets and their North Vietnamese clients that he was a hot-head willing to use nuclear weapons. The goal then was to scare the communists into negotiating. In some ways, this was the nub of the secret plan he talked so much about during the 1968 campaign just as Trump insisted that he had a secret plan to get rid of ISIS during the 2016 race. I call it the Madman Theory, the then-president explained to H.R. Haldeman, his chief of staff, as they walked along a foggy beach one day. I want the North Vietnamese to believe Ive reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. Well just slip the word to them that, For Gods sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We cant restrain him when hes 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.
-- Elites in Washington and across the world think Trump is crazy, but the president-elect has demonstrated repeatedly that he can be crazy like a fox. He knew exactly what he was doing when he called for a Muslim ban, for instance, or picked fights with people on Twitter to distract the press from much bigger problems. Weve already learned that Trumps phone call with the leader of Taiwan was not some spontaneous faux pas but a carefully-planned recalibration of U.S. policy.
For Trumps stratagem to work, foreign leaders must continue to believe that hes erratic and prone to irrational overreaction. We must as a nation be more unpredictable, Trump often said on the campaign trail. We have to be unpredictable!
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/12/20/daily-202-donald-trump-embraces-the-risky-madman-theory-on-foreign-policy/58583391e9b69b36fcfeaf47/?utm_term=.001d1344c330&wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,267 posts)I don't agree that Trump is doing the same thing. All of his biographers have said he is actually erratic and unpredictable and has the attention span of a gerbil. Either way, though, he's gonna fuck things up, bigly.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)it works in reverse.
moriah
(8,311 posts)But Nixon was reckless enough to end up impeached.
Maybe there might be other similarities, and both VP and Prez impeached at the same time....