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Mad Men
Thomas Schelling showed that it could sometimes pay to be irrational, or at least to appear to be irrational. If they think you're crazy then in a game of chicken it's your opponent who will backdown.
It's known that Nixon understood the theory but in an frightening article in Wired we learn the insane extent to which the theory was practiced.
Frustrated at the state of affairs in Vietnam, Nixon resolved to:
...threaten the Soviet Union with a massive nuclear strike and make its leaders think he was crazy enough to go through with it. His hope was that the Soviets would be so frightened of events spinning out of control that they would strong-arm Hanoi, telling the North Vietnamese to start making concessions at the negotiating table or risk losing Soviet military support.
Much more was involved than words, at one point nuclear bombers were sent directly towards Soviet airspace where they triggered the Soviet defense systems.
On the morning of October 27, 1969, a squadron of 18 B-52s — massive bombers with eight turbo engines and 185-foot wingspans — began racing from the western US toward the eastern border of the Soviet Union. The pilots flew for 18 hours without rest, hurtling toward their targets at more than 500 miles per hour. Each plane was loaded with nuclear weapons hundreds of times more powerful than the ones that had obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Soviets went nuts but following Nixon's orders Kissinger told the Soviet ambassador that the President was out of control.
Apparently neither Nixon or Kissinger had absorbed another Schelling insight - if you want to credibly pretend you are out of control then you have to push things so far that sometimes you will be out of control. The number of ways such a plan could have resulted in a nuclear war is truly frightening. After all, Nixon was gambling millions of lives on the Soviets being the rational players in this game.
Next time you are told how a madman threatens the world remember the greatest threats have come from our own mad men.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on March 10, 2008 at 07:47 AM in Economics, Education, History | Permalink
Comments
Great post! I'm sure some readers will call it "moral equivalency" but no, you've said that it's far worse (not equivalent) when aggressive people have thousands of nuclear weapons at their beck and call.
I sometimes catch people who are concerned about proliferation by asking, "What is the one country that has used nuclear weapons on civilians?"
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Mar 10, 2008 8:05:21 AM
Dr, Srangelove(1964) became the model for diplomacy?
Very disturbing.
Posted by: odograph at Mar 10, 2008 8:27:39 AM
I have maintained for decades that the only reason that the Cold War did not end in nuclear war is that the Russians had a realistic glimpse of what nuclear war would mean, with millions of dead, cities of rubble and starving survivors. And that glimpse was part of the largest war ever fought, which would pale before what would happen in a nuclear exchange. Having had a foretaste of the true hell that would result from nuclear destruction, even the Soviet leadership was not going to destroy itself over an ideology
Strange to think that fear prevailed over ideology, at least in the Soviet Union, while many Americans believed that 'better dead than red' was a rational response to a geopolitical struggle.
Sadly, the nation which values ideology over pragmatism, the winner of a contest involving military competition of the sort its founders had always warned against, is still armed to the teeth, and still looking for the chance to triumph over the fears lurking in its own collective soul.
Posted by: not_scottbot at Mar 10, 2008 8:42:55 AM
IMHO both Iran and North Korea understand both Schelling insights, and are applying them consciously and successfully. Both probably also realize that actually getting and openly declaring nuclear weapons would undercut their strategy, since once everyone knows you have them it is much harder to be convincingly crazy.
Posted by: DK at Mar 10, 2008 8:56:07 AM
I find that article difficult to take seriously. Is there any corroborating evidence that this event actually took place?
As for this--"Sadly, the nation which values ideology over pragmatism, the winner of a contest involving military competition of the sort its founders had always warned against, is still armed to the teeth, and still looking for the chance to triumph over the fears lurking in its own collective soul."
Yeah, whatever.
Posted by: DBrooks at Mar 10, 2008 9:13:23 AM
I sometimes catch people who are concerned about proliferation by asking, "What is the one country that has used nuclear weapons on civilians?"
I guess in that case they're silly to be concerned...?
Posted by: constant at Mar 10, 2008 9:16:48 AM
My understanding is that, at least in his later days, Nixon _really was_ out of control, messed up on pills and drink and completely paranoid, and that Kissinger told the joint chiefs that if Nixon called them and told them to do anything that sounded crazy they were not to do it until after they had called him. As much damage as Nixon did to this country (and it was a huge amount) it's scarry to think of how much more he might have done if things were only a little different.
Posted by: Matt at Mar 10, 2008 9:18:17 AM
Purple prose at its best! "Massive" bombers, with "185-foot wingspan" and "turbo engines" "racing" towards their target, no, "hurtling" "without rest" to "obliterate" their victims.
Posted by: George at Mar 10, 2008 9:34:35 AM
Since when do we look to a twenty-something trite computer magazine for serious political history?
Sorry, not buying Wired's article.
Posted by: liberty at Mar 10, 2008 9:35:46 AM
Next time you are told how a madman threatens the world remember the greatest threats have come from our own mad men.
Alex,
Your epistemic arrogance is, suffice to say, a disappointment. Neither you nor I have complete knowledge of the 'greatest threats' to have threatened the world.
Posted by: Varangy at Mar 10, 2008 9:43:48 AM
Anybody have anything credible to say or to link to, to help me decide whether to believe this or not?
Posted by: josh at Mar 10, 2008 9:55:29 AM
Wired is far over the top writing about everyday subjects. I would take anything they wrote about nuclear deterrence at such a large discount, it's probably not even worth reading the article.
Posted by: Zach at Mar 10, 2008 10:01:38 AM
The Wired article includes several original documents obtained by FIFA requests, look especially at the "Notes." For what it is worth, Suri is a young but well respected historian with a new book on Kissinger
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SURHEN.html
He was recently profiled in the Smithsonian magazine as a leading innovator.
http://history.wisc.edu/people/faculty/faculty_files/suri_smithsonian_fall07_2.pdf?Id=17
Alex
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Mar 10, 2008 10:08:42 AM
Shenanigans. I believe Alex's entire post beginning with the sentence, "It's known..." is a game of irrationality, and it's surprising to see some posters have bought into it. Alex isn't buying into Wired's incredibly awfully written and incorrect story but wanted to create the appearance of such a belief. His ultimate purpose was to illicit responses, particularly those in agreement with Alex (such as not_scottbot's), but the personal attacks, like Varangy's, are also a bonus. Alex 1, not_scottbot 0, Varangy -1.
Posted by: Shaun M. at Mar 10, 2008 10:09:30 AM
Nixon was supposed to be an excellent poker player. If true, this was a awfully large bluff though. Perhaps he realized that the Russians would realize he was just bluffing and that if they thought he thought this was a reasonable gambit then they would start to think he really was crazy though.
Posted by: mike p at Mar 10, 2008 10:10:19 AM
but what if the Russians new that he knew that they'd know he's bluffing; so clearly I can not drink the wine in front of me.
Posted by: josh at Mar 10, 2008 10:24:54 AM
How do you know this true? There is so much disinformation about that I confess myself unpursuaded.
Posted by: critic at Mar 10, 2008 10:57:17 AM
Some years ago I read a similar-sounding post about Dick Cheney written by John Perry Barlow. It could have been this one. It was a scary idea at the time, but I think the scarier truth is that Cheney is too disconnected to be a rational actor.
Posted by: Eduardo S at Mar 10, 2008 11:01:28 AM
This is scary. Why hasnt this been uncovered and dealt with in a serious historical text/book?
Posted by: Radman at Mar 10, 2008 11:18:32 AM
Does this mean that in the sequence JFK-LBJ-RMN, LBJ was the sane one who wasn't disabled by drugs? That is scary.
Posted by: dearieme at Mar 10, 2008 11:48:09 AM
We have known since 1980 that a readiness exercise took place in the fall of 1969 and the evidence for the article was published years ago
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB81/index2.htm
Posted by: joan at Mar 10, 2008 12:01:07 PM
Scary? Those frightened by the past (or a fantasy of the past) are condemned to perpetual quivering. Yesterday cannot hurt you. Are y'all afraid dinosaurs will eat your babies, too? And, nobody, I mean nobody, expects the Spanish Inquisition!
George: Amen. The writer clearly had an agenda which made even presentation of relevant historical fact an inferior consideration.
Posted by: foxmarks at Mar 10, 2008 12:01:15 PM
I just looked out the window and pigs are flying.
This is nonsense.
Posted by: jorod at Mar 10, 2008 12:11:34 PM
"Nixon was gambling millions of lives on the Soviets being the rational players in this game"
And all to save face...this is the economy of politicians. It's hard not to let loose unfiltered language when discussing these people.
I'm reminded of the Rush song "Heresy" and the line, "all around this great big world, all the crap we have to take, all the bombs and basement fallout shelters, all a big mistake."
Socialism was a big mistake. Assuming it could take over the planet (and that we had to go to the brink to avoid it) was our mistaken response to it.
So, our leaders such as Nixon had the big picture wrong, and they have the small picture wrong as we lose backwater war after war.
Posted by: Andrew at Mar 10, 2008 12:28:41 PM
For those pooh-poohing the Wired story, verification is important, but the point is the story is believable.
As "we" (and I use "we" in the mistaken sense that our unhinged political "leaders" are us) won't even take nukes off the table when dealing with third-world non-threats who don't yet have The Bomb, but will surely try to get it, or ally with those who do.
Today's leaders have mutually assured destruction and nuclear deterrence exactly bass-akwards.
Posted by: Andrew at Mar 10, 2008 12:33:09 PM
Back when we were saber rattling with Iraq, I assumed Bush was employing the same brinkmanship in order to get what we wanted while still maintaining the moral high ground internationally and maintaining leverage against states (vs independent terror groups, i.e. the real threat) without actually exposing our military to embarassment and overextension.
I guess him actually going in to Iraq was his version of going over the edge occasionally to make people think twice.
I'm still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by: Andrew at Mar 10, 2008 12:37:23 PM
Yeah, I call BS on this story. Of course, it's "believable" ... all good lies are.
Posted by: jim at Mar 10, 2008 12:42:14 PM
"We have known since 1980 that a readiness exercise took place in the fall of 1969 and the evidence for the article was published years ago
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB81/index2.htm"
That appears to be a dead link.
Posted by: jizay at Mar 10, 2008 12:51:34 PM
No Jim. TODAY we won't take pre-emptive nuking off the table. TODAY.
Posted by: andrew at Mar 10, 2008 12:59:19 PM
To underscore someone trying to downplay the story, we know Nixon was a crook, and insane. So, in that sense, this historical story is irrelevant.
However, the believability, true or not, is important because of what it says about our leaders TODAY. They are not even trying to pretend to be nuts. They ARE nuts.
Posted by: andrew at Mar 10, 2008 1:01:54 PM
All the article really says is that for three days in October 1969, 18 US nuclear bombers came close to Soviet airspace. The Soviets complained, and Kissinger said Nixon was angry over Vietnam. Then the bombers landed.
None of it was that unusual for the Cold War, and the threat was not large enough to provoke the Soviets into a panicked retaliation. This was not the Cuban Missile Crisis. Provocative, but still within reason.
I'm not sure how much of this was actually to make Nixon seem unpredictable rather than credible as someone who had no problem standing up the Soviets. Everything I've read suggests that Nixon was respected by his Communist peers, and they knew Nixon was actually consistent in his rhetoric and policies.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at Mar 10, 2008 1:28:36 PM
I used to think GW Bush was doing this, until I realized he wasn't faking it.
Posted by: Sameer Parekh at Mar 10, 2008 1:52:45 PM
I don't have a strong opinion either way on the correctness of the story.
It must be noted though that the story is wrong in several details. The author does not understand how nuclear weapons work. There is no possibility that a tired loader could drop a weapon and trigger an explosion. When loaded nuclear weapons are not armed, they are armed only before being deployed. Similarly, when the planes were being refueled there was very little risk that a bomb would explode, since they would not have been armed. There is risk in both cases of a significant leak of radioactive plutonium though.
The author is also - as far as I understand the subject - wrong to think that the Soviets would have known that the planes necessarily carried nuclear weapons. As far as I know, a tactic used in the Cold war was to arm and fuel up a plane as though it was going to do something like a nuclear bombing run. When doing other things procedures close to war procedures would be used so that outside observers could not distingush the difference.
Posted by: Anonymous at Mar 10, 2008 2:12:28 PM
Graduate in International Relations here; I've never heard of the episode recounted, though I'm passingly familiar (not an expert) with the period. Anyone got an independent link to show this happened and was substantially beyond the normal patrols, readiness exercises and probing?
As other commentators has observed; the hyperbole, mis-context, and bomb-safing insinuation in the link provided that make me doubt the overall veracity/context. Perhaps unfair, but I'm the kind of person who likes arguments proven without exaggeration and emotive appeals. Which brings me to my next point. I think it's simply untrue for Alex to describe Nixon ("Our Madmen") as "mad" (EXCEPT, perhaps, during the later stages of Watergate). Paranoid, vicious, shrewd, driven, and criminal, perhaps. But never genuinely "mad"/irrational in any sense game theory or even a psychiatrist would recognise. Perjorative labels should be avoided without really good evidence. Nixon had plenty of faults without having to make stuff up.
Of course, it's a good bet the Soviets hadn't read any game theory; nasty capitalist tract that it was :-)
Posted by: Alistair Morley at Mar 10, 2008 2:47:20 PM
wait...nixon was out of control?
if the author dines with kissenger and quotes from a diary by nixon's chief of staff. the burden of proof now lies in the doubter's court.
the national security archive that puts declassified documents out on the internet has some articles on operation giant lance as well.
Posted by: oops at Mar 10, 2008 2:47:58 PM
wait...nixon was out of control?
if the author dines with kissenger and quotes from a diary by nixon's chief of staff. the burden of proof now lies in the doubter's court.
the national security archive that puts declassified documents out on the internet has some articles on operation giant lance as well.
Posted by: oops at Mar 10, 2008 2:53:11 PM
I find this post to be insufficiently damning of Nixon, hawks and America. Alex yet again reveals his right-wing conservative bias.
Posted by: TGGP at Mar 10, 2008 3:06:28 PM
Alistair, Alex's "mad men" is clearly a play on words mad = mutually assured destruction.
Posted by: anon at Mar 10, 2008 3:09:48 PM
Kudos Mr. Tabbarok this theory of mad man negotiations is alive and well. Balistic Missle defence systems and an active program by the neocons to milliterize space leave us in the hands of mad men. One question though, Isn't George Shults a part of your libertarian movement?
Posted by: dag at Mar 10, 2008 3:12:42 PM
@ odograph
Dr Strangelove is exactly the right reference, frightening.
In the movie the USSR builds a "Doomsday machine" hoping that the US will not dare launch an attack in fear of triggering this infernal retaliation mechanism. The only problem is that the Soviets... forget telling the US!
:-)
We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when... la la la
Posted by: Stephane at Mar 10, 2008 3:28:32 PM
For those pooh-poohing the Wired story, verification is important, but the point is the story is believable.
People who make this argument usually believe a) the story is not true b) it would serve their purposes if other people believed that it was true.
If it makes no difference whether the story was true, why tell it?
Posted by: ad at Mar 10, 2008 3:28:54 PM
I sometimes catch people who are concerned about proliferation by asking, "What is the one country that has used nuclear weapons on civilians?"
Bob, do they ever ask if you think the Japanese should have been concerned about nuclear proliferation in 1944?
Posted by: ad at Mar 10, 2008 3:47:27 PM
Ad,
No, the point is, I'd never heard the story before, but not having heard it, and not knowing if it was true did not factor into my believing Nixon was deranged. And if the story isn't true, it won't change my mind. There is plenty we know to be true. It would be more of a stretch to believe that people like Nixon act the way they do in everything they do EXCEPT war and nukes.
Posted by: Andrew at Mar 10, 2008 4:39:16 PM
"All the article really says is that for three days in October 1969, 18 US nuclear bombers came close to Soviet airspace."
Ooooh, is that ALL it says? And to think we went to war with Iraq on just the hint that they might have had some things not even close to as destructive as nukes.
And to think we are threatening war with Iran because they once had a dream that they might have liked to have a nuke or two.
I can see why the Soviets wouldn't overreact to such.
Posted by: Andrew at Mar 10, 2008 4:43:09 PM
@Shaun M.
Shenanigans. I believe Alex's entire post beginning with the sentence, "It's known..." is a game of irrationality, and it's surprising to see some posters have bought into it. Alex isn't buying into Wired's incredibly awfully written and incorrect story but wanted to create the appearance of such a belief.
Er, what evidence do you have that we not take Alex's posts at face value?
but the personal attacks, like Varangy's, are also a bonus. Alex 1, not_scottbot 0, Varangy -1.
My comment was neither an attack nor ad hominem. I simply registered my disappointment at what I take as arrogance. I am a great fan of this blog (I read it daily) and its authors, but am also honest and vocal when I think they have erred.
While I am at it, I should add that one problem I have with this blog is that TC and AT are much too used to speaking down to naive undergrads and grads (telling them 'what's what', as they say), in this forum, they occasionally come across as arrogant which can, to be truly honest, be quite irritating to an adult.
Posted by: Varangy at Mar 10, 2008 5:00:39 PM
I'm not sure about this "greatest threats" thing either.
Cuban missile crisis, anyone? Nuclear-armed Soviet IL-28 bombers and nuclear artillery shells, not just IRBMs?
daq: "To militarize space"? Where've you been these past decades, when the USSR made that a fait accompli?
(And how does that make more danger, exactly? Likewise ABM systems? Being able to stop a ballistic missile strike doesn't make the world a more dangerous place or leave us in the hands of "mad men"; it gives everyone else a great reason not to make ICBMs.
Or do you seriously mean to suggest that Russia having a credible threat against Europe and the US is somehow a boon to the world situation? The logic here is ... not obvious, at least to me.)
Posted by: Sigivald at Mar 10, 2008 5:31:13 PM
@ Sigivald Maybe you havn't been aware of the dismantling of non proliferation treaties that the Bush administration has recently been involved in. Also bmd systems are seen by other countries as offensive weapons used for full spectrum dominance. Being that having a good shield makes it easier to use your spear. Additionally having a sattelite with maybe a tactical nuke in it that can strike any spot on the globe without impedence and under cover in minutes makes the mad man negotiation strategy a lot more effective. Problem is with the ever groing threat of sophistcated hair trigger alert icbm systems we can accidentally end the species.
Posted by: dag at Mar 10, 2008 6:45:08 PM
If that is true, then I am severely gob-smacked (stunned beyond belief). America needs to change it's election process radically so that the rich crazy candidates (Nixon, Bush) don't get into power. Each party should choose it's candidates internally (with the party leaders) and then present them to the people, like in Australia and the UK. Each party leader is then chosen based on their ability, not the amount of money they can get funded with for advertising campaigns (which could pay off a 3rd-world countries debt).
Posted by: Gary Storm at Mar 10, 2008 8:22:57 PM
@Gary:
Nixon's victory was not a result of the primary system. Up through the 1968 election, only about of a third of the states used them. It would be more apt to say that the primary system was a result of Nixon's victory, being largely encouraged by the nominating rules the Democratic party adopted following their loss that year, in the hopes of never having a repeat of their disastrous 1968 nominating convention.
Posted by: Cyrus at Mar 10, 2008 9:10:10 PM
Dr Strangelove is exactly the right reference, frightening.
Actually, the exact right reference is Fail Safe, a much better movie, also released in 1964. It is also not a comedy, so the viewer is not distracted by clearly over-the-top characterization.
In that movie a hardware failure means a recall code is never sent to a scrambled bomber group, so it continues on toward the Soviet Union. The Schelling component is played by Walter Matthau, who believes that no exceptional means should be used to stop the errant attack...
The Russian aim is to dominate the world. They think that Communism must succeed eventually if the Soviet Union is left reasonably intact. They know that a war would leave the Soviet Union utterly destroyed. Therefore, they would surrender.
Posted by: MikeP at Mar 10, 2008 9:16:04 PM
By the way, Kubrick consulted with Thomas Schelling.
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Mar 10, 2008 9:36:56 PM
A few people have posted responses to my comment about non-proliferation. I think they got my point, but just to make it crystal clear: 99.9% of the people talking about non-proliferation mean, "We need to keep those bad countries from getting nukes, because they might hurt people with them." They never say, "And just to show how serious we are, let's reduce the arsenal of the U.S." The idea is that "we" can be trusted with nukes, because we're the good guys. (Just like Bush with a straight face can warn Iran not to mess with Iraq because it is a sovereign country.)
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Mar 10, 2008 10:23:53 PM
Huh, so you guys are saying that electing unaccountable leaders and giving them the power to destroy the world might tend to produce bad results? I don't know, that sounds like commie-talk to me. I think you guys just need to stop worrying and learn to love the state.
Posted by: Grant at Mar 10, 2008 11:28:47 PM
In terms of Andrew's comparison to the bomber flight as a cause for war, and the Iraq War, he is omitting a lot of context that is relevant.
People's concern here was that the USSR would have panicked and started WWIII in response. Well, it didn't panic. Furthermore, there is no reason to assume why it would have panicked. Only the author of the article is panicking. The Cold War had many, many provocative actions that were considered by both sides to be "acceptable" and not escalatory. Other than a diplomatic protest, the article does nothing to indicate the Soviets felt threatened by Nixon's actions. Did they raise their alert levels? Did they mobilize troops in Eastern Europe? Did they instruct their navy, air force, or strategic forces to "respond" to these flights? The article doesn't suggest that. Nor does it suggest that Nixon escalated his actions in response to them. By the lack of Soviet response, we can judge that Moscow did not consider this one act as threatening. 18 bombers were not enough to be strategically decisive, and I believe the Soviets understood that and realized the US was not going to war. (Of course, if Nixon had continued this level of activity, perhaps they would have - but he didn't. Likewise, if the same event had happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the bomber flight would have been interpreted very differently. It also would have sent a very different signal to a country which we were not engaged in an already decades long Cold War. Sending a flight of bombers to Brazil or India would have signaled an escalation in hostility that this did not have). We only have to compare this action by Nixon, and Putin's own recent actions to resume nuclear alerts and send bomber forces close to NATO airspace. In this case, that was definitely escalatory, but the reaction by the US and NATO was very passive as well.
In terms of Iraq, there were over 10 years of treaty violations and no fly zones. After September 11th, the Bush administration decided the criteria for military action was considerably lower than it was before. Thus, Saddam's actions which were considered "acceptable" previous, became "unacceptable." This was clearly signaled to Saddam. Saddam was told to comply to his previous agreements, and he didn't. The diplomacy involved in this took place over a series of many months. In other words, the decision to attack Iraq (regardless of whether or not you consider it right or wrong) was a deliberate series of steps taken over a very long period of time, and the US gave very clear signals what would be its response and ample time for compliance. It was not a panicked rush to war. Saddam could have ended the crisis at any time by compliance, but he choose not to because he didn't think the US was serious. Strangely, here we have a case where the war was caused because the opponent didn't think the other side was serious!
In neither case were the casus belli panicking the other side to war. Likewise the context of both demonstrate two very different situations. If you examine the scenarios, instead of making a superficial comparison, you see that they are not alike at all.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at Mar 11, 2008 8:28:01 PM
mmm, sensatioanl. let's break this down until what we have is rational thought...
"massive bombers" = oooh
"eight turbo engines" = massively underpowered and underperforming; note that modern aircraft have fewer engines for increased power and speed
"185-foot wingspans" = not necessarily better, or how i learned to shoot down the massive bird
"began racing from the western US toward the eastern border of the Soviet Union" = plod, plod, plod
"pilots flew for 18 hours without rest" = it's the air force, dear
"hurtling" clouds with reckless abandon, tossing mist and vapor to and fro
"at more than 500 miles per hour" = a very slow rate by aircraft standards leaving plenty of time for rest (see above), poker, and *ahem* reading
Posted by: be fair at Mar 11, 2008 9:26:31 PM
i forgot the conclusion: if what i understand is ridiculously overstated and boring, then i have no interest in the things i don't already know
Posted by: be fair at Mar 11, 2008 9:28:02 PM
I think they got my point, but just to make it crystal clear: 99.9% of the people talking about non-proliferation mean, "We need to keep those bad countries from getting nukes, because they might hurt people with them."
Do you disagree with them?
Or do you disagree with their implicit belief that the US and its allies are unlikely to bomb themselves?
Posted by: ad at Mar 12, 2008 3:35:19 PM
