Well Do You, Punk?

The point Reynolds seems to be missing (surprise!) is that then gun-wielding maniac usually ends up dead. Scare people too much and they might just decide that it’s not worthwhile having you around.

I started off saying that we do our crazy thing within certain limits and those limits are widely known (if not entirely certain)–we won’t use nukes, for example. But I searched my head for examples and found — “preemptive war,” which is our new doctrine, and the desire for bunker-busting nukes, that might actually, god forbid, be used.

Excuse me while I go drown myself in the bathtub.

I dislike the American habit of calling all of our enemies insane.

It’s the old Klingon problem- Klingons may be outwardly rowdy and dangerous, but SOMEONE had to do the fucking mathematics and metallurgy to get them into space.

Wasn’t this Nixon’s strategy in the 60’s and 70’s, for dealing w/ Vietnam and the Soviet Union? The “Mad Man” strategy? It doesn’t seemed to have been a wonderful success, even though he apparently was actually mad (or at least hopped up on booze and pills) a fair amount of the time.

The only economics I ever took was Econ 101, so I always feel a bit stupid posting anything about economics on CT, but this particular bit of hackery reminds me of something I realized when i was taking Econ 101 way back in the day, which was the idea that, to first order, monetary policy is only effective if nobody is expecting it. So, the optimal monetary policy is to have the Crazy-as-Fuck Fed Chariman who is totally unpredictable. Sure, it won’t get you anywhere. But at least it’s effective.

Hmmm, I am lucky enough to have taken Economics 102 or whatever it is, at the place where they teach you why the world works as it does rather than as elementary game theory models say it might (never was there a field in which “a little learning is a dangerous thing” was so apt). A few supplementary questions.

1. Realistically, how crazy and unpredictable can America credibly threaten to act?

2. How crazy and unpredictable are some of the people out there who Iran could quite easily slip a bit of uranium to?

3. Who’s going to win this impromptu craziness contest?

The big strategic issue with respect to Iran is that we can’t account for every single bit of uranium they’ve got or enriched. So the option is always open to them at any stage to go hands up, say “ok fair cop” and we only find out what the secret plan is when it goes boom in the middle of somewhere I’m likely to be.

It’s called the ‘madman theory‘:

The Madman theory was the defining characteristic of the foreign policy conducted by Richard Nixon’s presidential administration.

The administration attempted to make the leaders of other countries think Richard Nixon was mad, and that his behavior was irrational and volatile. Fearing an unpredictable American response, leaders of hostile Communist Bloc nations would avoid provoking the United States.

“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.” H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power

The administration employed this strategy to force the North Vietnamese government to negotiate a peace to end the Vietnam War. Along the same lines, American diplomats (Henry Kissinger in particular) portrayed 1970 incursion into Cambodia as a symptom of Nixon’s supposed instability.

Didn’t quite work for Messrs. Nixon and Kissinger, or for Mr. Hitler for that matter.

Link to the abovementioned Friedman’s piece: CRAZIER THAN THOU.

Just so I get it: a wielded gun is more dangerous than a holstered gun? What the fuck does the maniac have to do with it? It’s the placement of the gun that matters, yes. Good analogy, oh yes.

Harris writes: A gun being waved back and forth by a maniac is far more disturbing to us than the gun in the holster of the policeman

Reynolds’ “corollary” apparently being that all the policemen should promptly start behaving like maniacs… because that would really improve things for everyone. Like freddie says, that’s some funny stuff coming from a supposed law professor.

What do we do with gun-waiving lunatics? Get on our knees and say “please don’t hurt me”? Only if no other choice presents itself. We leave the area, regroup, find a SWAT team and have the guy killed.

Do we need allies? That was a question Bush II answered in a way that admirers of crazy gunman foreign policy might like, but it has not paid great dividends. Bush I answered differently, and got the results he wanted. You might disagree his result, but they were the results he was seeking. Bush II, so far, cannot credibly make that claim.

Do we want to maintain (or recover) diplomatic soft power? Hard to do if you undertake crazy gunman foreign policy.

Crazy gunman has the appeal of being simple, dramatic and easy to explain. It has the drawback of being shallow, ill-considered and unsupported by the facts under Nixon or Bush II. Where did Glenn Reynolds stand on Bush’s attempt to gut Social Security because Treasury debt is a “worthless IOU”? That, too, was simple, dramatic, and wrong.

The U.S. is already scarier and less predictable than Iran. Iran has not started a war in the entire 20th century. Compare the U.S. record.

Huh?

WTFF huh?

Basic concept from game theory: the game of chicken. Yes, a player who appears suicidal has an advantage of a sort, but that kind of crazy isn’t the same as “wild and erratic.” The dominant strategy is to rip out your steering wheel.

Deterring the Soviets in Europe during the Cold War, China in the Taiwan Straits now, North Korean reinvasion of South Korea for decades, and Saddam Hussein from using chemical weapons during the first Gulf War were all triumphs of being extremely predictable– the more the U.S. was able to successfully create the impression of “tripwires,” of mechanical thresholds and responses, the more effective its deterrence has been.

Schelling discusses the advantages of appearing irrational in, IIRC, both Arms and Influence and The Strategy of Conflict. There are times that it makes ‘rational’ sense to be unpredictable, but most of the time it is a bad strategy of trying to compel or deter adversaries and would-be adversaries.

If Reynold’s hadn’t already convinced everyone with an ounce of sanity that his views are worthless, that post should do the trick.

Jacob Levy, if we were playing a game where there was one best strategy that always worked, then we’d be stupid not to use it.

One trouble with being completely predictable with tripwires etc is that we then sometimes run into other players who game our responses.

When they see an advantage in provoking us — say, for domestic political gain or whatever — then they trip our first warning tripwire and get the response they intend, and then back off. And then they trip it again and get their predictable response, and do that however they think they’ll get the best benefit. And how far they go depends on where they think their advantage lies.

A second trouble is, when you rip off your steering wheel so the bus will get out of your way, you need to be sure the bus doesn’t have its steering wheel ripped off too…. There’s only room for one out-of-control vehicle on the road, and then only if it’s a straight road.

On the other hand, if you’re playing a game of chicken and you try to persuade the other guy you’re crazy, you’ll win way more than half the time. But you’re also way more likely to get in a head-on collision. It’s pretty good if you’re the only one who plays that strategy.

When I was in high school and people played chicken with me, my response was to stay in my lane and slow down. The slower I go the less the impact, and if my brakes are on they’ll take more of the change in speed. They can call me a coward but I can call them idiots. And if they get out of the car to remonstrate with me, then I can play chicken with them while they’re on foot, to get my chance to drive off….

Anyway, it works exceptionally well to make careful measured precise threats with clear triplines to persuade our enemies not to do things they didn’t want to do in the first place. Works almost every time.

9 and 20 have sort of beaten me to the punch, but whatever.

If there’s any “right” way here as it “righteous” or “being the good guys” — both of which I want us to be, and am not satisfied that we actually are, it’s in sticking to the rule of law. Justice and fairness matter a lot here. And if we stick to the law (and I believe that most US and International law is available online) then how we behave is predictable.

I think the corollary is that we can’t be unpredictable and good.

It’s the old Klingon problem- Klingons may be outwardly rowdy and dangerous, but SOMEONE had to do the fucking mathematics and metallurgy to get them into space.

Klingons aren’t real. As nonexistant things they’ll not be doing any math or metallurgy and will not be going into space.

Just an FYI

#14 & #35

uh … the tactic of madness – pretend or for real – did NOT work in the case of Vietnam.

History books across the political spectrum all conclude that the US LOST the Vietnam war.

Perhaps something to do with helicopters being pushed into the sea because there was no more room on the carriers.

Or maybe it was something to do with the masses of North Vietnamese armour streaming into Saigon – Ho Chi Minh city.

But RWR’s comment about “… the bombing starts in 5 minutes” scared the crap out of the Soviets, didn’t it? And don’t tell me any of you buy that “story” about how an extremely experienced radio announcer/actor didn’t realize the mike was “live”.

This post is un-american.

Ted and Dr. Ngo,
I’m pretty sure abb1 was being ironic about Nixon’s strategy working. (I know I was when I mentioned it.)

Susanc, look at the question what the terrorist organisation is trying to accomplish.

There are terrorists trying to do national liberation, who’re so weak they can’t go after military targets but go after civilians. Like the IRA hitting civilians in england. (They may have made a real difference when they almost killed high government officials.) The point is to show the enemy that it isn’t just their soldiers against occupied civilians, everybody’s at risk.

There are terrorists who go after tourists, figuring that the tourist trade brings money to the enemy and they can try to shut that off. When it’s reducing tourists in the occupying nation (like palestinians trying to reduce tourists to israel) then it makes sense. When it’s reducing tourism in their own country, making their own supporters poorer as well as the government, then it’s a sign that they’re very very weak and probably don’t have much support.

There are terrorists who support some grand philosophy or religion. They might feel their ideals are worth killing millions of people for. But usually they have some intention of winning something, it isn’t enogh to kill millions of people and then get stamped out.

And there are terrorists who have no hope for the future, but want revenge for losses in the past.

And there are terrorists so very weak that any hope they can do something that people will notice is more hope than they can reasonably expect.

It’s only the last three that have reason to use nukes. If you’re trying to throw an enemy army out of your country, and you nuke the enemy country, what’s the chance the army will leave? Pretty slim. They can’t very well nuke your country while they occupy it, they can’t hold a whole cityful of your people responsible for what you did. But there’s no way they’re going to leave and let *you* run the place. They’re going to do everything they possibly can to find you. And your people will tend to understand them, and sympathise some, or at least be very, very afraid.

Unless you can nuke them decisively, so they lose their military threat, it’s a stupid thing to do. On the other hand, if you nuke some of their military forces in your own country, that’s a different story….

Persuading the public of some other country that their military actions might reflect back on them, that it’s personal and not just something their government is doing that has nothing to do with them — that can be a viable approach. Hurting the enemy public real bad is not. You want to get their attention, get them to notice that it matters, that they have a stake in it. You don’t want to make them insanely angry.

It makes far more sense for israel to nuke an american city and say the arabs did it, than for any arab or muslim group to do it — if it’s arabs who want us to leave them alone.

So it’s only those last three groups who might be willing to do it. The third group I discount. If they’re so weak they’ll do anything to get noticed, then they can’t get a nuke.

Mostly people who want their ideals to prevail aren’t going to do terrorist nukes; possibly some would. They can’t expect to do game theory. If they say “We have nukes and we might use them”, they don’t get negotiated with. They just get put first on the list to be tracked down and killed. You can’t negotiate on that basis any more than you can negotiate with the Danish.

They can’t expect to set off a nuke and then brag about it. “See what we did, give in or we’ll do worse.” The world will tend to cooperate with the attacked nation to track them down and kill them.

If they want us to do something, nuking us just isn’t the way to get what they want.

The one terrorist version that makes sense is the one where they’re in such despair at what they’ve already lost that they want to hurt us no matter how much worse it gets. I don’t know of anybody who’s approaching that except palestinians and chechnyans. I’ve read the claim that chechnyans have lost more than 10% of their population. That’s cause for a lot of grief but they still have 90% left with lots of babies, and they have that to lose. Palestinians have lost less so far, but the israelis have been pretty sophisticated at trying to make them give up all hope. There might be groups in either place that would use nukes if they could get them, intending that they’ll at least hit back before they go extinct. I don’t see anybody else.

Incidentally, I should quote the whole passage as quoted from Reynolds to make it clearer:

‘ATRIOS FOR SECRETARY OF STATE:

Certainly an Iran-with-nukes could blow the hell out of a city or two, but an Iran that did such a thing would pretty much cease to exist. It isn’t mutually assured destruction, it’s you fuck with us a little bit and YOU NO LONGER LIVE BITCHES!

Perhaps we could put this in a demarche?’

Definition of Demarche: ‘an action or gesture by a diplomat, esp. a formal appeal, protest, or the like.’

1. Realistically, how crazy and unpredictable can America credibly threaten to act?

Well, logically it can’t threaten to be unpredictable. If you threaten something, then it’s not really unpredictable. You can threaten to be aggressive, or passive, or even irrational, but not unpredictable.

Well, you could, but it would sound a bit weak. “I will do such things – what they are yet I know not, but they will be the terrors of the earth.”

Or you could announce the use of a dice-based foreign policy.

“I have this to say to President Ahmedinejad. The people of the United States have no desire for war with Iran. But unless Iran agrees to admit inspectors as a sign of its commitment to peace and non-proliferation, I will order the Joint Chiefs of Staff to roll 2d6 and consult the following table:

2d6 Foreign Policy Initiative

2: Dispatch Jimmy Carter to Teheran
3: Dispatch a special envoy (player’s choice)
4: Condemn Iran at NATO summit
5: Appeal to the UN Security Council
6: Enforce sanctions on Iranian assets
7: Blockade
8: Expel Iranian diplomats
9: Airstrikes
10: Sink Iranian tankers
11: Invade Iran
12: WILD CARD! Invade another random state!

Is it reading comprehension or a divergent set of presuppositions? Reynolds is not suggesting the US institute “wild and crazy” as a foreign policy. He is suggesting that a nuclear Iran is terrifying because they are “wild and crazy”.

@james

Quote Glenn Reynolds: “A corollary is that the United States probably needs to be scarier and less predictable itself”

Pretty much sounds like he is suggesting we need to adopt aspects of unpredictability as well.

sigh

If we’d tried to conquer north vietnam at least we would have had a lot of vietnamese speakers for translators.

#51 Guys like you are why we’ll be losing soldiers and killing Iraqis for the next 20 years. ‘Conquering’ North Vietnam would have been just the beginning of our problem…kinda like Iraq, huh? Please come back to planet earth, if not for your sake for ours. The days of Hernan Cortez and Juan Pizarro are over. We can’t scare the natives with horses and gunpowder anymore! Oh and check out what’s happening in Venezuela and Bolivia, they’re even starting to to reject shiny bits of glass and colorful cloth as exchange for their natural resources! We’re in big trouble…. Oh, but wait, W says gasoline from coal and corn will save us! Barring that we can all move to his new colonies on Mars! We could have won in Vietnam if we had sent Sgt. Rock and Captain America though…..