I'm not a great fan of the 'madman' strategy anyway. Too much risk, and not enough reward to make up for it. It's like someone trying to be new sheriff at the poker table. How often does that shit work? Only occasionally.Nixon's Gamble: How a President's Own Secret Government . . . , Locker, page 49:
https://books.google.com/books?id=a... between the desire for a peace deal"&f=false
' . . . Nixon veered between a desire for a peace deal to end the Vietnam War and the impulse to look too tough to care about peace. The Soviets, however, knew from their secret Dobrynin channel that Nixon did not believe the war was winnable. That rendered much of his war strategy strictly for show and undermined Nixon's so-called madman theory, which he thought made him formidable and unpredictable. Instead, Nixon unsettled his own team, . . . '
But perhaps a modified version of the 'madman' theory ? ?