The madman theory is a political theory commonly associated with United States President Richard Nixon's foreign policy. Nixon and his administration tried to make the leaders of hostile Communist Bloc nations think he was irrational and volatile. According to the theory, those leaders would then avoid provoking the United States, fearing an unpredictable American response. Some international relations scholars have been skeptical of madman theory as a strategy for success in bargaining. One study found that madman theory is frequently counterproductive, but that it can be an asset under certain conditions. History In 1517, Niccolò Machiavelli had argued that sometimes it is "a very wise thing to simulate madness" (Discourses on Livy, book 3, chapter 2). However, in Nixon's Vietnam War, Kimball argues that Nixon arrived at the strategy independently, as a result of practical experience and observation of Dwight D. Eisenhower's handling of the Korean War. In his 1962 book, Thinking About the Unthinkable, futurist Herman Kahn argued that to "look a little crazy" might be an effective way to induce an adversary to stand down. Richard Nixon Nixon's chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, wrote that Nixon had confided to him: I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that, "for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button" and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace. In October 1969, the Nixon administration indicated to the Soviet Union that "the madman was loose" when the United States military was ordered to full global war readiness alert (unbeknownst to the majority of the American population), and bombers armed with thermonuclear weapons flew patterns near the Soviet border for three consecutive days. The administration employed the "madman strategy" to force the North Vietnamese government to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War. In July 1969 (according to a CIA report declassified in February 2018), President Nixon may have suggested to South Vietnamese president Thieu that the two paths he was considering were either a nuclear weapons option or setting up a coalition government. Several American diplomats, staff members, friends, and family, knew Nixon indulged in alcohol and had trouble battling insomnia,