• 18/05/2022
• By wizewebsite
• 607 Views

Madman at the helm Jiří Sobota<

A lay observer of Russia, with whom I discussed the situation east of our borders on Monday, described Vladimir Putin's behavior roughly as follows: "We're sitting in a pub, a poor, strange guy comes in, with whom normally no one in the village talks much. But this time she's even stranger than usual, she's terribly drunk and has something in her bag. In time he starts yelling that he brought some of his bangers and that he's going to shoot us all. He wants to sit down at the table, and this time we hesitantly make room for him and start talking to him in a calm voice. Because, you see, he's serious, he's a joke, he really has those guns and he really fires them out of the window at sparrows every Sunday, last time he almost hit the neighbor's Škoda passing by. He's a super nerd, but he's scary.”

In a way, Russia could be a laughing stock to the West, its economic strength is roughly equivalent to the economic muscles of a much smaller Italy, if it were not for a different mental attitude. The Russian, we believe, is just that inscrutable madman capable of anything. We are decent dads from families who don't want to get into trouble. Moscow confirms this view from time to time, but mostly likes to demonstrate it with words and threats - much like the aforementioned weirdo in the village pub. Nothing new under the sun, on the theoretical front a similar approach to international relations is called Madman Theory.

The fact that it is advantageous to intimidate the opponent with one's own supposed irrationality and blind determination was already written by Machiavelli, but in modern times this strategy is mainly associated with the American president Richard Nixon. For example, when he unsuccessfully tried to negotiate the withdrawal of American troops at the end of the Vietnam War, he launched a secret operation codenamed Giant Lance, in which American bombers loaded with hydrogen bombs took off and roamed near the Russian border for three days. Nixon confided several times to various advisers that he wanted to extract concessions precisely by cultivating the idea that he was "out of control" - and that in a fit of insanity he was capable of using the nuclear arsenal.

Apparently, the recent US President Donald Trump was also a follower of similar tactics. Just think of his nuclear threats against the North Korean regime or - less apocalyptically - the repeated threats to withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Alliance if its members do not radically increase arms spending.

It is noteworthy that, according to political scientists, the omnipotent madman's tactics often do not work. The adversary either does not understand her at all or simply refuses to believe her. On a more rational level, if the alleged madman is irrational and capable of extreme measures, it is extremely difficult to believe that he will start behaving more reliably the moment we accede to his demands.

However, it is not true that a "madman" would never succeed. The North Korean leader, for example, is generally and traditionally considered to be "crazy", for whom, however, his supposed "irrationality" works quite regularly. The North Korean regime is able to force meetings at the highest level (perhaps with Donald Trump) or economic aid through a variety of arbitrarily induced crises. Even Nixon was probably able to really convince the North Vietnamese regime that it would be better to agree on terms acceptable to the American side.

And Vladimir Putin, who has amassed invasion troops near the border with Ukraine and at the same time claims that Russia is under threat from NATO and has nowhere to retreat, has already twice forced direct negotiations with the American president, who otherwise does not seem to care about declining Russia he devotes his interest and his foreign-political attention primarily to the rise of China. The result of the pressure and threats of "all-powerful Russia" will be direct negotiations between Moscow and NATO after the holidays. The psychological game continues.