"The theory was more applicable in Nixon's era because of three background conditions that were in place. The first was information scarcity. During the Cold War, signals traveled more slowly than they do today and through narrow channels. Messages were filtered by professional diplomats, intelligence analysts and military officers. Ambiguity could be sustained. A country's leader could appear possibly unhinged without being instantly decoded, contextualized or publicly dissected. "Madman" signaling depended on this controlled opacity."
"The second condition was a stable adversary with a shared notion of risk. Nixon's gambit worked, when it worked at all, because Soviet leaders were deeply conservative risk managers operating inside a rigid hierarchy. They feared miscalculation because they believed it could lead to the Soviet Union's fall - or at least their fall within it. The third condition was credibility built through restraint elsewhere. The madman pose only works if it is exceptional."
Madman diplomacy relied on three background conditions: information scarcity, stable adversaries with shared risk aversion, and credibility formed by broader restraint. During the Cold War, slow, narrow communication channels allowed ambiguity and controlled opacity. Soviet leadership operated as conservative risk managers within rigid hierarchies, making them sensitive to miscalculation. Exceptional displays of unpredictability could therefore amplify deterrent credibility because they contrasted with otherwise orderly American institutions. Modern information flows—real-time social media, leaks, and rapid reframing—prevent sustained ambiguity and turn unpredictability into noise. Contemporary adversaries accustomed to instability may probe or escalate in response to apparent irrationality, reducing the tactic's effectiveness.
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