On Wed, 9 Jun 2010 10:35:21 -0400 Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> writes:
> [WS:] Not necessarily. The "madman behavior" is not uncommon among
> state
> actors, especially in situations of power imbalance or perceived
> power
> imbalance. If you are a small guy, the rational behavior would make
> you a
> predictable pushover when confronted by bigger guys. But if you do
> not act
> rationally, or at least convincingly convey a message that you do
> not, the
> predictablity of you being pushed over disappears, and the big guy
> will
> think twice before provoking your "mad response" to his threats.
> And that
> is precisely what a small guy who does not want to be a pushover
> intends.
>
> To me, Israeli politics contain quite a big dose of projecting the
> image of
> a "madman state" (just like North Korea does) - from unverified
> perception
> that they have nukes to disproportionate lashing out at relatively
> minor
> threats to its interest. Their perception seem to be that they are
> surrounded by mortal enemies that would run them over many times if
> given a
> chance. This was clearly the case prior to the Six Day War and they
> simply
> lucked out that their foe was the Egyptian Army and not, say, the
> Wehrmacht
> or the Red Army or the US Army. Things changed since then and
> anyone
> tethered to reality is aware that the success of the SDW could not
> be
> repeated today. Hence the madman strategy.
This is the famous "madman strategy" which was developed by the game theorist - Thomas Schelling (an American) who shared the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2005 with the Israeli game theorist Robert J. Aumann.
Schelling's ideas concerning how irrational appearing behavior on the part of state actors can be rational in certain kinds of conflict situations were later taken up and applied most famously by Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon.
Israel's recent conduct does seem to raise the question as to how rational its leaders are. Since in the past, it has been apparent, that its often seemingly irrational violent conduct has often been coddled, if not encouraged by the US, then it would seem to be quite rational in its seeming irrationality. But when such behavior becomses so extreme as to raise questions in America's ruling circles as to whether Israel now constitutes a net burden on the US, then we may ask ourselves how tethered to reality they are now a days, which I expect is what Finkelstein is driving at here.
>
> I am not trying to defend the reprehensible behavior of the Israeli
> state -
> which btw is not that much different from what many other states do
> to their
> respective "unruly" minorities - but simply to paint a more
> multi-faceted
> picture instead of simplistic vilification.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 8:27 AM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ^^^^^
> >
> > Dennis Claxton
> >
> >
> -
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant ____________________________________________________________ Penny Stock Jumping 2000% Sign up to the #1 voted penny stock newsletter for free today! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4c10228d6e70e7bb5em03vuc