The Madman Strategy
Israeli officials explain to Noah Shachtman that their recent policies haven’t been erratic and irrational, they’ve been calculated to appear erratic and irrational:
Israeli leaders believe they’ve accomplished that task. “The Arab view is now that Israel is a crazed animal, locked in a cage, fuming to get out all the time,” a senior Foreign Ministry official tells Danger Room, approvingly. “Now, it’s the responsibility of the Arab leadership to keep the animal in the cage, by not provoking it.”
Despite my Forbes-based reputation for empiricism, in philosophical terms I’ve always put my allegiance with the pragmatists. In other words, I believe that a strategy that’s indistinguishable from an erratic and irrational one is an erratic and irrational strategy. Robert Farley observes:
The danger, of course, is that while erratic behavior might seem a plus in relations with the Arab world (not really, but stay with it), such a reputation most definitely isn’t a positive with the rest of the world. Some Israelis may sincere believe that they don’t need anyone; I suspect that this is the greatest strategic error of all.
To take an example, as Jon Chait points out Israel has traditionally counted on the United States declining to take an even-handed approach to Israel’s conflicts with the Arab world. That’s been accomplished in part by the use of institutions like The New Republic as ideological enforcers, but as Ezra Klein says the clout of such enforcers is often overstated. The larger factor has been a genuine lack of even-handed sentiment. But behaving in a “crazed” and brutal manner is not a good way to build social capital. When you ask, “why should Israel be, by far, the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid money?” The response, “well, Israel is like a crazed animal, locked in a cage, fuming to get out all the time” isn’t a persuasive reply.
It’s also worth repeating Rob’s parenthetic. People sometimes think that a reputation for erratic behavior is an asset in international relations, but they’re wrong. This is related to what I was saying yesterday about democracies and cooperation. You want the kind of reputation that makes your commitments credible to potential partners and potential adversaries.
44 Responses to “The Madman Strategy”
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January 23rd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
The problem with the madman gambit is that you pretty much have to be a madman to do it.
Thus, when people are claiming the crazification, note that it only works for imprisoned princes and wisemen, for all else, they genuinely are incoherent to the point of madness. Regardless of actual sanity.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I believe this ploy was pioneered by Richard Nixon, who was trying to get the Chinese and Russians to put the brakes on Hanoi. Later he wised up (Kissinger channeling Metternich) and. as Spock put it “went to China” which ultimately worked. A lot of dead people (of all colors) in between though.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I was under the impression that Nixon’s Mad Bomber schtick did work quite well at Halloween parties, however.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
If all the Government of Israel wanted to do was convince their neighbors that they were a coterie of Jeffery Dahmer wannabees, they would have been better served by applying Hama Rules to the Gaza Strip. That would have really put the fear of the lord in their adversaries.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
You can be empirical and a pragmatist. Maybe not in philosophy survey courses, but in the ordinary uses of the terms. Especially in policy analysis.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
The madman gambit is the bumbling nation-state version of “I meant to do that!”
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
In other words, the reason we f—ed up is because we want to give you an impression that we are a nation of f—ups.
Yeah that looks great on resume of the Zionist entity.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
When you put two madmen (real or contrived) in the same petri dish, the results are predictable, a lot of dead people. And since Israel has the biggest and best guns that we gave them, most of the dead are Arab. And Israel looks like what they’ve done, madmen killers. Not the best image for solving a problem that is only solvable with having the moral high ground on the world stage.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
That sounds like what back in 1999 people called rogue nations.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I don’t know why it’s true, but for he last twenty or so years, with only a couple of brief exceptions, Israel has been governed by a succession of very stupid people. This is a very serious problem when you’re a small isolated country. As we’ve seen, sustained stupidity can do tremendous damage even in a country as rich and powerful as ours.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Right-wingers also like to claim Iran’s (supposedly) erratic, unstable and irrational behavior makes it impossible to negotiate with Iran. So why would they expect Palestinian leaders to negotiate with an erratic, unstable, and irrational Israel?
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
So their master plan is to send the world the message that they’re a crazed dangerous animal? They are aware of what people in the real world do to crazed dangerous animals, right?
With less snark, the whole “fuming to get out” bit is really bad. It implies that Israel wants to have an excuse to Get Their War On (Operation Cast Lead in the motherfucking house!).
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I’ve seen this strategy mentioned before and it certainly seems to explain Israel’s bomb-the-infrastructure strategy in both Lebanon and Gaza. And I can see how it would scare the crap out of people everywhere hostile to Israel. But I also simply cannot imagine how this strategy works long term to make Israel anything but a target. How can choosing to be an armed maniac loose cannon be expected to end well? Sure, they can scare the crap out of their enemies, but it does tend to drive away friends too. I don’t see how this path leads to happily ever after.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Chait said this: “Now, opponents of the pro-Israel posture argue that the United States can’t broker peace unless it takes an even-handed posture. But that’s only true if you assume that both sides are equally at fault.”
I wish someone would smash that argument to bits.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Where I come from, people SHOOT crazed rabid animals.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:06 pm
It is truly amazing how a country with so many smart, decent people can have such incredibly stupid leaders. The madman strategy completely ignores the importance of the U.S. to Israel’s security.
If Israel convinces the American people that Israel is a crazed animal, support for Israel from the U.S. will eventually weaken despite the efforts of the Israel lobby, especially if the rest of America’s allies and trading partners start treating Israel like a rogue state.
Israel will face trade sanctions that will wreck its economy at the same time that Americans’ willingness to support Israel financially and militarily evaporates.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
It’s also demonstrably ineffective based on the fact that we’re discussing how Israel is employing the “crazy dog” strategy in a public blog. If Arab countries know that Israel is acting like a “crazy dog” on purpose, than you simply adjust your own strategy to exploit the weakness in the “crazy dog” doctrine. Which, as Matt points out, involves scaring the crap out of your allies by launching a grossly disproportionate attack against your enemies based on the flimsiest of provocations. In this case, I would recommend that Arab countries start consistently testing Israel’s limits by ratcheting up the minor provocations to get Israel to waste its military and diplomatic resources on pointless retaliations. In the meantime, Israel begins to look like an international pariah.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
The boys at Malmstrom AFB in Montana EXCEL at dealing with crazed, rabid animals.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
“When you ask, “why should Israel be, by far, the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid money?” The response, “well, Israel is like a crazed animal, locked in a cage, fuming to get out all the time” isn’t a persuasive reply.”
It’s a good question to ask, crazed animal or not. I suspect the main answers are that, 1) the aid gives us leverage over Israel, and 2) most of that aid is military aid, which is spent here and creates jobs here. Given the size and strength of Israel’s economy, it really doesn’t need economic aid from the U.S., and, absent our military aid, it ought to be able to manufacture its own weapons or else buy from other countries what it can’t manufacture domestically. That’s exactly what Israel did for the first couple decades or so of its existence, when it received no aid from the U.S.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Problem is that the ‘crazed animal’ theme shifts the aid from something that benefits us, to something that smells more like extortion. ‘Give us money because we’re cute and fluffy’ sells better than ‘give us money or we’ll bite your hand’.
I hope the next Israeli government is long lasting and stable, because if this is the flavor of stupid we can expect before each election, then they’re screwed.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:30 pm
The invasion of Gaza is over and done with. From now on, if Hamas violates its ceasefire with rocket or mortar attacks, Israel will probably just respond with drone attacks — sort of like what we just did in Pakistan.
That’s the good thing about being a foreign aid donor versus recipient though: we don’t have to worry about Pakistan cutting off our allowance when we periodically kill folks on their side of the border.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Just as long as it’s not the Chinese border.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Very strange quote. If you read the article, there’s nothing to support it. Instead we get a nuanced discussion of efforts to prevent civilian deaths.
I would think that any Israeli leader who says “we want to be perceived as insane” is making shit up. It’s less embarrassing than admitting that what they just did was a total failure.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:12 pm
“It’s less embarrassing than admitting that what they just did was a total failure.”
In what sense was it “a total failure”? How many rockets have landed in southern Israeli towns this week, versus the week before the invasion?
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:26 pm
What DaveinHackensack doesn’t realize is that (1) the Gaza massacre is now Israel’s Sharpeville; and (2) Hamas is not firing at Israel because they are busy eliminating Shin Bet operatives in the Strip. Once that task is completed, we’ll see.
Moreover, the fragging of America’s “moderate” Arab allies–read: friendly dictators–will continue unabated. Let’s see where we are in six months. You don’t see Syria, Qatar, or Iran running for cover, do you? Just the “moderates.”
Remember that Soweto Uprising occurred in 1977–17 years after Sharpesville. But the Apartheid Regime started slipping into Pariah Status after Sharpesville.
Boycott Israel now.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Re Don Williams
Where Mr. Williams comes from their is wall to wall white trash.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
It’s wunderbar the way the Israelis are using the psycho beast who feeds on high-tech bloodbaths strategy to frighten the filthy shvatz goyim into submission. Hey, if anyone knows what grotesque overkill is – it’s the Jews! Faystash? Herding hungry and disheveled people into structures and then shelling it, waving ambulance workers ahead and then shooting them in the back, running tanks over fleeing children – these Jews have really caught on! Who wouldn’t be ferklempt and plotz at such joy? Mazel tov!
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:01 pm
I don’t know why people think Hamas is not firing rockets at Israel now. They have been steadily since the ceasefire stopped in December, and they did so ALL THROUGH the Gaza assault. And they have not stopped now.
When they were NOT firing rockets was during the previous ceasefire. A few militants not directly under their control fired some between June and October, with the numbers steadily decreasing as Hamas put those militants on notice and even arrested some of them. Only in November – after Israel violated the ceasefire violently by killing some Palestinians – did Hamas resume firing rockets to some degree.
Which was perfectly reasonable since it was clear by then that Israel was not going to live up to its bargain by
opening the crossings which itself was a major violation of the ceasefire agreement.
This week Hamas was firing rockets at Israel as Olmert was saying the ceasefire would only hold if they didn’t.
Well, they did, and so far it’s holding on the Israeli side.
But the Israelis never adhere to ceasefires. They’ve been violating the Lebanese border repeatedly with jet overflights, sonic boom “attacks”, and the like since the 2006 war. So they’ll violate this one as well.
Meanwhile Hamas was smuggling in weapons during the entire offensive, and Israel has now admitted it didn’t come close to destroying all the tunnels (I’ve seen figures of up to 2,500 tunnels existing), which are being rebuilt as we speak.
Where SLC comes from is the sewer that Don’s folks dump their shit in.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Re Richard Steven Hack
The blogs resident ex-con bank robber and yellowbelly is the slime off the bottom of the cesspool.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:02 pm
So if I say, “Israel appears to be a crazed animal, locked in a cage, fuming to get out all the time”, it’s still anti-Semitic, right?
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Stupid like a fox.
Also, how do you outcrazy suicide bombers? You’re more likely to drive sane people crazy until they become suicide bombers.
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:17 pm
So much garbage to clean up and so little time. But I’ll try a few:
1. Farid…You remind me of the idiot Southerners who revere their anscestors, even though they started a war because they liked to enslave and own other people. And then lost it, and , even today, insist on calling it The War Between The States. Wars have consequences, particularly when the party starting the war lost. It is The Civil War. You Lost. Get over it. (Incidently, they now have a President who their ancestors would have tossed into chains and worked in the cotton fields, just because of his race. It took 150 years for the North and the South and people of all races to come to live in peace, and it wasn’t all smooth, but it is better.
To ou Farid, I will only say that your fathers or grandfathers started several wars, and I have no idea why. They lost. Israel won. Wars have consequences. It is ISRAEL not “the zionist entity.
(And who knows, maybe 150 years from now, but if we really work at it, maybe 150 ears from now, but maybe we can learn from the mistakes of others and work at it, and if we really, really want hard enojugh, it wouldn’t be a dream that the Israelis and the Gazans and the West Bank folks and the Lebanese and their non-lebanese “guests” might all be able to live in peace. But if you cannot bring yourself even to say “Israel, it maybe closer to after we both pass away, hopefully of natural causes and not shrapnel or bullet holes, or rockets or pinpoint bombings.
Mr Gottlieb: You claim that “Israel has been governed by a succession of very stupid people” ocwe a long period of time. There certainly have been stupid Israeli leaders —shit happens in a democracy — but there have also been a lot of very smart Israeli leaders. If they were all stupid, There would be no Israel. We can afford 8 years of a less than sharp president, but the middle east is a tough neighborhood, and the margin of error is a lot smaller than in (I assume you are American) our very large country.
Al…President Jimmy was not the worst president ever…I don’t think he is even the second worst, but he is so hated by the Republicans, that Ronny/ Ronny / George would have had no hiesitation any money that President Jimmy had promised, if they felt thast was appropriate. And if President Jimmy gave money to Israel, it was so he could get money from Egypt. He has not really been a good friend of Israel, except for brokering the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, which, in itself was good enough to take him out of the “worst” place on the list, and maybe put him somewhere in the lower middle.
Finally, to the propietor, so to speak, although he really only rents, although I know where the quotes about the crazy Israelis are from — and it sounds much better in Hebrew —
but I think those interviews are for the potential arab foes and not you.
It is sort of like the large corporations who don’t care about the law, and are willing to pay a reasonable penalty if they get caught. They know what the fines, in a criminal action, or damages in a civil action, should be, and just crank that number into their costs, to see whether the extra profit from the pollution, or failure to provide worker safety procedure or whatever are worth the cost savings or not. And they HATE “crazy” punative damages without limit because juries can do anything, and they can’t calculate it. Therefore they LOVE supreme court decisions which say that you can’t have punies that are more than the actual damages, or 1.5 time actuals or whatever. Because with such a rule, they can calculate the damages.
Hamas, I will assume, that they can niblle along, sending5 rrockets a day, and gradually 10, and israel does nothing. But when they send 60 and Israel decides to respons, that can’t calculate the damages. Israel is basically saying you can’t count on us to be “proportionate”. (That is what the evil poluuters want too”) Israel might well be DISproportionate, and you may lose a lot more of your people, and the 46 percent of Gazans who didn’t vote for you than you calculated. That might be why no arab / muslim population has entered into the fray this time. Because they know that you don’t want to goad isarel into action. Because depending on how Israel reacts, it just might not be worth it.
One other thing, Matt: I don’t like all the people killed and all of the destruction in Gaza either. I don’t like the damage done by the ISraelis, and I don’t like the nonHamas Gazans who have been shot in the legs — better than knee capping I guess — ir murderedd by Hamas people. But if reports by and Italian Journalist and a BBC reporter — just two i happened to remember — are to be believed, the devastation of property may have clearly been very pinpoited, and was not caused by the equivalent of carpet bombing, and the number of dead may have been exagerated. That does not mean that the loss of life and property damages was laudable, merely that it seems it was not “crazy”.
I do know that I will go to pray tomorrow morning, where we will pray not only for the Israelis lost, but for alsoo those on the other side, and that we might, much sooner than that 150 years, learn to live in peace. To all of you, please join me.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:09 pm
a nice link to one particular Palestinian and one particular Israeli who learned to live in peace:
http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/02/yotam-ottolenghi-profile
One is an Israeli Jew from West Jerusalem and the other is a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, and they are partners in a gourmet food shop in London. (Big hint as to the basis of both their partnership and their exile from the too-much-promised land: they’re gay. For some mysterious reason, these great promises never seem to be made to gay men, wonder why that is).
Not a lot of details, but it seems they both followed similar trajectories of discovering they wanted to cook for a living in the course of discovering who they were (and discovering that their families disapproved), moving to a city famous for having lots of gay men, and then when they met each other they each found someone who understood their life story in a sea of Brits who had no idea what they were talking about.
And now they’re reinventing world food, without either Israel or Palestine.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Maybe this was their strategy, or part of their strategy… maybe it wasn’t. The fact that someone “senior” in the Foreign Ministry says so doesn’t mean that the leadership of the country thought so.
One might want to consider the alternate possibility, for example, that the purpose of this invasion was exactly what it was stated to be. In this regard I note that rocket fire on Israel from Gaza has ceased. Who knows how long this will last, of course.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:04 am
It is past time to find out if the Israelis who don’t think they need anyone are right.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:12 am
“the devastation of property may have clearly been very pinpoited, and was not caused by the equivalent of carpet bombing, and the number of dead may have been exagerated.”
I’ve been waiting for that one to come up – the usual Zionist propaganda: “Oh, they made it all up and besides they were hiding behind civilians.”
Same horseshit they tried with the Lebanon assault. Same horseshit the right wing tried with the Georgian misadventure.
You have to be a complete moron to give that any credence. Article after article from independent journalists, the UN, everybody, saying how bad this attack was – and some fucktard pops up and says, “Oh, it wasn’t that bad! We didn’t nuke ‘em!”
Fucktard Barry thinks the Arabs started all the wars. Asshole hasn’t looked at the fact that Israel has invaded its neighbors SEVEN FUCKING TIMES in the last twenty years.
Not to mention that it was the Zionist “invasion” – more precisely, colonization – that caused the problem in the first place.
Bottom line: Israel as a Jewish STATE has ZERO legal or social right to exist.
And that makes the Zionists one hundred percent responsible for everything that has happened and will happen.
And when Israel glows in the dark, I hope fucktard Barry remembers he said that all that matters is, they won, you lost.
Asshole.
January 24th, 2009 at 2:27 am
“You’re more likely to drive sane people crazy until they become suicide bombers.”
Not too many suicide bombing attacks in Israel these days, in case you haven’t noticed. Before rockets the big threat was suicide bombings, and when Israel took steps to counter it — with target killings, building fences, etc. — people like you said it wouldn’t do any good. Of course, the Israelis stopped the suicide bombings cold. Same thing they’ll do with the rocket attacks. Watch.
“Israel as a Jewish STATE has ZERO legal or social right to exist.”
What legal or social right does the U.S. have to exist, numbnuts? What legal or social right do you have to become a ‘transhuman’? Was it a Jewish judge that you put you in the clink? I’m trying to figure out why you have such a bug up your ass about Israel. Your illogical screeds here don’t help explain that.
January 24th, 2009 at 4:28 am
Fred, you’re a moron, so I don’t know why I’m bothering here to reply to this.
First, Israel has not “stopped” any suicide bombers. Hamas has.
Second, Israel as a state was created solely out of legal (actually illegal) fiat, and has nothing to do with how the US was created or anybody else. The UN had no legal authority to partition Palestine as they did. Look it up, moron.
Why do I have a bug up my ass about Israel? Because I don’t like assholes, especially religious, fascist, colonialist, imperialist assholes. Which happens to be who runs Israel. Israel is like some fucking scumbag schoolyard bully, or some fucking Mob guy who thinks he owns the fucking joint. People who have no other purpose in life except to fuck other people other for their own personal benefit.
Scum like Bush and Cheney.
Scum like you.
January 24th, 2009 at 4:29 am
Crap typo. Second “other” should be “over”.
January 24th, 2009 at 8:20 am
“The UN had no legal authority to partition Palestine as they did.”
What legal authority did Britain have to partition the original Palestine Mandate, which created Trans-Jordan (later called Jordan)? None. And yet I don’t see you whining about the “illegal” status of Jordan. Why not?
The fact is that the UN’s partition plan for the rest of the Palestine Mandate — the smaller cis-Jordan part that includes what is now Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank — was never implemented. The Jews agreed to it, the Arabs rejected it, but the partition plan is moot because it was never implemented. Britain left when its Mandate expired, and the Jews of Palestine declared themselves a state, on the little bit of ground they already controlled. The offered an olive branch to their Arab neighbors who responded by invading them. Israel defeated them and thus won its independence and statehood. The Arabs have been whining about this ever since. Time to move on.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Re Fred
Mr. Hack is too busy whining about the injustice of his 9 year incarceration in Leavenworth for walking into a bank with a loaded gun, sticking it into a hapless tellers’ face and demanding the contents of the latters’ cash drawer on pain of termination with extreme prejudice. He also advocates the assassination of police officers, even though, when the opportunity to put his advocacy into effect as he was attempting to board a bus and was intercepted by law enforcement officers, was passed by. Mr. Hack, by his inaction during that arrest has proven himself to have some chicken feathers where his competitive spirit ought to be.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I find Matthew’s continued infantilization of the Palestinians somewhat puzzling. As far as one can tell from this blog, all agency for moving negotiations forward lies with Israel and the United States. The Palestinians and the Arabs generally don’t seem to exist in his thinking except as purely reactive objects. They have no agency of their own. They are responsible for nothing.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:00 am
Fred, you continue to dredge up bullshit as if it were fact.
Whatever Britain did with Jordan is irrelevant to the present issue.
The UN specifically set up a commission to determine if it had the legal authority to partition Palestine as they did. The commission concluded they did NOT. All the UN had the authority to do was to implement the Mandate.
As for the Arab attack on Israel, the facts remain that the Zionist terrorist groups conducted terrorist attacks on the Arabs in Palestine AND the British, and had every intention of expanding their control of Palestine by force of arms. Therefore, the fact that the Arabs intended to defeat this intention by pre-emptive attack is irrelevant. The nature of the Zionist enterprise was quite clear to them and many other people.
There was no “olive branch” offered to anyone.
Anybody who wants to find out the truth about the creation of Israel can visit the UN’s Web site which contains the history of the problem.
The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem
http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/561c6ee353d740fb8525607d00581829/aeac80e740c782e4852561150071fdb0!OpenDocument