Re: US Presidents acting nuts

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/20/06, Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> This morning my eyes popped out as I was reading Paul Kane's call for
> reinstating the draft on the op-ed page of the NY Times. Kane is identified
> as a Marine who served in Iraq and now is a fellow at the Kennedy School of
> Government, a prime training ground for CIA agents, State Department
> flunkies and other dark forces.

"dark forces," Louis? don't you mean "evildoers"? ;-)

seriously, this madman theory is, I understand, derived from very
wonkish and "rational" social science, i.e., game theory. This says
something about game theory, I guess, and about rationality.

If you see the now-gone competition between the US and USSR as a
"game" of chicken, the game theorist says: there are four possible
results.

as the two cars approach each other on the narrow bridge:
1. US chickens/USSR doesn't (USSR wins)
2. US doesn't/USSR does (US wins)
3. both chicken (no winner, both alive)
4. both don't (no winner, both dead)

[part of such a standard game theory exercise is that both sides are
essentially equal and have essentially the same types of goals, but it
doesn't have to be that way.]

obviously, number 2 is the best for the US -- but if the US doesn't
chicken and it turns out that the USSR doesn't chicken either, there's
nuclear holocaust (number 4). Similarly, number 1 is best for the
USSR, but could just as well cause number 4 to arise.

So the madman strategy is for the US to act like you're not going to
chicken (like Mad Max Mel Gibson in the film "Ransom") so that the
USSR will chicken (because it wants to avoid number 4). Thus, the US
gets what it wants (number 2).

However, the USSR might act crazy too, so that doesn't really solve
the problem. The whole idea of their having a doomsday device in the
flick DR. STRANGELOVE was to lock in the mad man strategy, so that the
US would _have to_ chicken. With only options #1 and #4 on the table,
the US would have to chicken -- or commit suicide. (Of course, they
didn't reveal the existence of the doomsday devise, so this strategy
led to option #4. Sorry if this gives away the ending. We'll meet
again...)

With both sides acting crazy -- but neither side locked in with a
doomsday device -- both might chicken out, so they get the best result
for both, #3.

An obvious solution is to destroy the game or change its rules. The US
and USSR might start communicating behind the scenes (on the "red
phone"), so that they can get the best mutual result (#3). The usual
game theory exercises doesn't focus on this because it's less
problematical, but we don't have to be limited by academic tradition.

The power elites on the two sides can get away with this red phone
strategy why also _acting_ crazy, which makes it seem to the hawks on
both sides that their leaders aren't wimps. There's not just a US/USSR
game going on. In addition, there's a "game" between the power elites
of each side and various pressure groups.

This seems to be what actually happened -- though both sides spent
much too much of their resources on looking like they were Big Men who
would _never_ chicken. This alternative "game" fits better with the
fact that the cold war was a continuous process in real time, not a
one-shot scene from a movie (as in "Rebel Without a Cause").

I think we also saw a sociological process, i.e., the development of a
macho/crazy mentality as normal to the culture of the US power elite.
(And maybe of the USSR's power elite, but I don't know.) Politicians
of the Kennedy era competed about who was toughest. Being a "weak
sister" was _verboten_.  I think that continued all through the Cold
War era, with some fluctuations around the norm. With the end of the
Cold War, this culture was thrown into chaos, so there was a certain
amount of anomie or confusion during the Clinton years. But the
Bushies are trying to bring back the macho/crazy culture with a
vengeance.

Returning to the Cold War "game," to make this game-destroying
solution more likely, mass pressure on the government of either side
is needed. Various anti-war movements made it increasingly difficult
for the "West" to include the "attack" strategy as the first option.
That meant more and more that only options #1 and #3 were available to
the US elite. Thus, the US had to consider either surrendering (option
#1) or coming to _detente_. The latter prevailed, at least until the
USSR fell apart.

(as usual, feel free to criticize the above.)
--
Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence
of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles