My Take | A ‘senility theory’ of US foreign policy over Taiwan
- Richard Nixon made famous the madman theory of international politics and Donald Trump resurrected it. The idea is that erratic and unpredictable behaviour frightens your enemies into compliance. A president perceived to be mentally deficient making dangerously provocative statements such as over Taiwan may have a similar impact
Portraying the head of state as a madman, especially one in control of a vast nuclear arsenal and military force, can be a rational strategy. You may have heard of the madman theory in political science, nuclear deterrence and game theory. Those theories have been variously applied to analyse Richard Nixon, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and three generations of the Kim regime in North Korea.
No one would accuse US President Joe Biden of being a madman, but I am beginning to think whether playing at senility may have a comparable impact. Maybe we can call it the “senile old man theory”.
After all, everyone assumes that the US government will continue to function even if its commander-in-chief is crazy or mentally deficient. But a mad or senile sitting president – however you understand those words – can still have a great impact on foreign policy, and decisions on war and peace. That perception by his adversaries is what matters.
Whether Nixon really was irrational and volatile, he liked the Russian and Vietnamese communists to think so. Perception is all. In his thinking, your enemies will be more accommodating, or at least less inclined to take risks and be provocative, if they think you are unpredictable and may react disproportionately.
Nixon wasn’t completely “crazy” to think so. There is a rich and respectable literature in the social and political sciences behind the idea. Thomas Schelling, a giant in the development of game theory, won the Nobel economics prize in 2005 partly on the strength of his study of seemingly irrational behaviour as a strategy in a bargaining or competitive situation.