The Madman's Diminishing Returns

In the fall of 2025, the Trump administration did something genuinely impressive. Over a period of weeks, it brokered ceasefires in six border disputes — Rwanda-Congo, Armenia-Azerbaijan, India-Pakistan, Kosovo-Serbia, Cambodia-Thailand, Egypt-Ethiopia — using a combination of economic leverage and military pressure that made the United Nations look, in the administration's telling, like a debating society ^[1]. By November, Trump was making a claim that, stripped of its characteristic bluster, contained a real kernel of truth.

I have stopped 5 of the eight WARS directly because of the threat of Tariffs if they don’t stop fighting or, better yet, if they start. — Donald Trump

The boast was characteristically inflated — India never confirmed Trump's role in its May 2025 ceasefire with Pakistan ^[2] — but the underlying pattern was real. Tariff threats, naval deployments, and the abrupt severing of diplomatic niceties were producing concessions. A China trade truce followed, with tariffs frozen after peaking at 145% and 125% respectively, though Trump later admitted no formal agreements were reached because "the details were too tedious" ^[3]. Iran came to the table for Pakistan-mediated negotiations after a U.S. blockade of its ports and Israeli strikes ^[4]. The madman theory — Nixon's old playbook of making adversaries believe you are volatile enough to do anything — appeared to be working. Then the administration scaled it. By January 2026, the same tool was being deployed everywhere at once. A naval blockade, warships, fighter jets, and B-52 bombers appeared in the Caribbean to pressure Venezuela's Maduro ^[5]. At Davos, the administration dropped any pretense of the old order. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed the forum and made the break explicit.

Long live harsh realism! — Pete Hegseth

Trump delivered his own warning to allies, stripped of diplomatic euphemism: "You can say yes and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no and we will remember" ^[6]. Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, named what was happening in terms that would have been unthinkable at Davos a year earlier.

Enough with the talk of a rules-based order, as if it still functions. — Mark Carney

The scaling was the hinge. The more theaters the tactic covered, the more data every target had. And by mid-2026, the data was sufficient. China did not yield to 100% tariffs. It countered with rare-earth restrictions that hit American defense supply chains directly ^[7]. Iran, far from collapsing under U.S. bombing, closed the Strait of Hormuz and kept it closed ^[8]. Russia continued drone and missile strikes on Ukraine even during the so-called truce talks Trump had brokered in Abu Dhabi ^[9]. Brazil's Lula ignored tariffs designed to derail the prosecution of former president Bolsonaro ^[7]. Each adversary had absorbed the pain rather than conceded — and each absorption taught the next one that the pain was survivable. The allies proved an even more consequential problem. They did not yield either. They began building around the instability. European governments started stripping American technology from their systems, investing in domestic AI and space industries, and pursuing what leaders openly called "de-Americanization" to reduce their exposure to U.S. volatility ^[10]. Macron declared "there is no going back" ^[10]. Carney warned that "if we're not at the table, we're on the menu" ^[10]. The rupture with NATO became explicit when Trump declared himself "finished with NATO" over the Greenland dispute, threatened war with Denmark, and rejected the UK's offer of carrier assistance with a statement that would have been unthinkable from any previous American president ^[11].

That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer. — Donald Trump

Macron responded by calling for a coalition to oppose both the United States and China ^[11].

But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won! — Donald Trump

The strategy's biggest test, however, was the one that was supposed to prove its power conclusively: the Iran war. The predictions collapsed one after another. The war Trump said would last four to five weeks continued for four and a half months ^[12]. Iran downed two U.S. aircraft despite claims of total air superiority ^[12]. Gas prices never fell below $3.70 ^[12]. No popular uprising materialized against the Iranian regime ^[8]. Trump oscillated between calling Iranian leaders "rational" during negotiations and "cuckoo" and "scum" after the deal fell apart ^[12]. Seventeen U.S. service members were dead ^[13]. Approval ratings sat between 30 and 38 percent, with a 34-point swing against Trump since January 2025 among voters with a high school education or less — his core base ^[13]. And then the base itself began to fracture. Marjorie Taylor Greene charged that "Trump has betrayed his campaign promises of no more foreign wars" ^[14]. Tucker Carlson declared the Iran conflict "Israel's war" and demanded immediate exit ^[14].

You're not going to have a war with me and you're not going to have a third world war with me. — Donald Trump

Rep. Thomas Massie pushed a congressional veto ^[14]. Trump insisted "You're not going to have a war with me" even as the bombing campaign continued ^[14]. The gap between rhetoric and reality had grown too wide even for his own coalition to ignore. It was at this point that the historical parallel became explicit. White House adviser David Sacks, confronting a war that had no visible endpoint and no achievable victory condition, proposed a solution that echoed the exit Nixon took from Vietnam — the original madman-theory war.

declare victory and get out — David Sacks

The proposal was remarkable not for its novelty but for its honesty. Nixon's madman theory had followed the same arc: early yields gave way to systematic counter-adaptation, and the exit was not victory but a declaration of it. The theory had worked once — and could not work again, because the unpredictability that gave the tactic its power had become, through repetition, the most predictable thing in the room. The world has stopped flinching. It has started building. De-Americanization is not a slogan; it is a procurement policy, a defense budget, a technology stack. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed not because Iran is winning but because it has calculated that absorbing American bombs is preferable to absorbing American terms. China's rare-earth restrictions are not a negotiating position; they are a hedge against a partner who has made volatility his brand. The allies are not negotiating better terms within the alliance; they are building outside it. The madman theory was not wrong about human nature. It was right — once. And that is the problem. A tactic that depends on the shock of the unpredictable cannot survive becoming a doctrine. The world has had eighteen months to study the move. It has learned it. And it is no longer afraid.