The huge difference between Nixon using the madman theory in the Vietnam war was that it didn't work because the enemy knew he really wasn't crazy. Trump IS crazy, and this may work to his advantage.

He also has Hegseth his Hitlerian henchman.

Nixon had a theory, also shared by Henry Kissinger, that if they could convince North Vietnam and Russia that he might be so crazy, so irrational, that he might go as far as using nuclear weapons against them so that they would back down rather than risk provoking him into what would be a psychotic reaction.

The Guardian has an excellent article with a telling illustration that describes the many indications that Trump doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing in the war he has started with Iran. Their article doesn’t even go into the other decisions he made that backfired and bit him in the butt. Read it here:

The article has a sentence about the madman theory. This is what prompted me to write this Substack:

If Trump has a historical precedent it might be Richard Nixon’s “madman theory” – the idea that keeping adversaries deeply uncertain about a president’s sanity and limits can yield diplomatic leverage

Here’s an analysis from ChatGTP of how effect it was:

Did the Soviets Believe It?

Evidence from Soviet archives suggests:

• Soviet leaders noticed the signals and took them seriously enough to monitor closely.

• However, they did not truly believe Nixon was irrational.

• They generally interpreted the signals as deliberate pressure tactics, not genuine instability.

In other words, they thought he was playing a role, not actually out of control.

Did North Vietnam Believe It?

The leadership in Hanoi also appears to have been skeptical:

• They had already fought through years of massive U.S. bombing under Lyndon B. Johnson.

• They believed the U.S. had political limits because of American public opinion.

• Their strategy assumed the U.S. would eventually lose domestic support for the war, which ultimately happened.

Because of that, historians generally conclude the madman strategy did not significantly intimidate North Vietnam.

Did It Work?

Most historians say not really:

• It didn’t force Hanoi into quick concessions.

• The war continued for years after Nixon took office.

• The eventual settlement, the Paris Peace Accords, came mainly after prolonged fighting and negotiations rather than fear of Nixon’s unpredictability.

Bottom Line

• Soviet leaders: cautious but largely unconvinced Nixon was truly irrational.

• North Vietnamese leaders: mostly dismissed the bluff.

• Historical consensus: the madman theory had limited practical impact on ending the war.

I’m not an historian or presidential scholar, but I would hazard my opinion that while Richard Nixon had many characteristics which caused him to be ranked as one of the worst presidents, none of them include his being crazy or stupid. In fact, experts considered him to be a highly intelligent individual, albeit with a complex personality that included feelings of inadequacy. His political strategies, while notoriously unethical, showed a shrewd well-planned strategy. The botched Watergate buglary and Oval Office tapes derailed that plan.

Nixon also graduated from Duke University Law School which, while not as highly ranked when he graduated in 1937, was already considered a reputable law scchool.

The exact ranks of presidents vary. All the lists look pretty much like this:

Considering Trump has nothing to move him up the list, and arguably many things to move him down the list, he can’t go any lower.

Back to how the madman theory didn’t work for Nixon and how it could work for Trump…

I think that when it comes to fighting a war, Trump doesn’t know his ass from a mole hole in the ground. I think he is the kind of person who would use dynamite to go after moles who were ruining his golf course.

I don’t think he has to play act being a madman.

If the Iranians believe this, they may realize that if Trump begins to feel he’s losing he may actually do what Nixon wanted the enemy to believe about his using nukes. It would be ordering the military to drop every piece of high explosive in America’s arsenal on Iran and turning it into a wasteland. This has been referred to as “bombing an adversary back to the Stone Age.” It is a term most famously associated with Curtis LeMay, a U.S. Air Force general known for advocating massive strategic bombing of North Vietnam. This morning in a BBC interview an Israeli official talked about bombing Lebanon back to the Stone Age.

Trump already has Hegseth saying we should show Iran no quarter, a war crime (see article) and thus essentially saying that his Department of War doesn’t even have the Mafia morals of never killing family members of those who the bosses decide to rub out.

Therefore, according to this logic, it is a good policy to carpet bomb the country with no regard for civilian deaths. After all, why allow children to grow up and join the Revolutionary Guard? He could have his own version of Operation Rolling Thunder which was supposed to help the US win the Vietnam War.

We know what the final scene of that story looked like:

Trump has already demonstrated that he doesn’t give a damn about making the lives of innocent children miserable by having his armed thugs grab them and send them to his prison camps. He barely cares about the public outrage over this. And these are kids who the most hardened members of MAGA think are destined to grow up to be gang members. The rationale for this is that the children with bad parents will grow up be as bad or bad, or worse, than their parents.

I suppose that this is true in some instances. Consider the case of the son of Fred Trump.

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