White Chicken Chili and The Madman Theory of Everything

Today we're doing a white chicken chili, which is one of my favorite ways to justify eating a whole block of cream cheese. I'll be doing this one in the crockpot on low, which will give me just enough time to listen to a classic 80,000 Hours episode with Daniel Ellsberg. This one's from a few years ago but I put it back in my queue when I heard he’d died (at the age of 92).

If you've heard of him it's probably because he was the pentagon papers guy in the '70s, but he came on the podcast because he'd written a new book about his real passion: nuclear weapons. As in, he's worried about them. His main concern is that the US and Russia are both acting as if a nuclear war is "winnable", ignoring the fact that neither side can “win” a nuclear war because of the global famine that would be caused by nuclear winter. He also says that we have far more weapons than are needed for deterrence. And he thinks the land-based ICBM's are a particular liability since their locations are all known to the Russians.

The history here is interesting: The reason we have underground silos in the first place is that in the 1950s and '60s the Russians had powerful nuclear bombs, but their missile guidance systems weren't very accurate. A hardened underground silo couldn't be destroyed by anything but a direct hit, so our missile launch capability was fairly safe. But over time both US and Russian guidance systems got better to the point where even the underground silos weren't safe anymore, meaning they could be destroyed by a nuclear first strike.

In a crisis, this can put enormous time pressure on the president to decide whether or not to retaliate with our land-based missiles, since it's use it or lose it; they might only have five to ten minutes to decide whether to launch the missiles before they are presumably destroyed. This increases the likelihood of catastrophic accidents: If our early warning systems are imperfect (they are), a false alarm could lead to us launching our weapons needlessly, causing a full nuclear retaliation. This has almost happened numerous times, such as in 1979 when NORAD incorrectly informed our national security adviser that hundreds of Soviet missiles were headed to the United States, and in 1983 when a Soviet satellite warning system incorrectly reported that US missiles were headed toward Russia.

Each such crisis was averted in time, but the point is they didn't have much time before the land-based launch capability might have been lost. By contrast, our submarine-launched missiles are comparatively safe: Since their locations are secret, they're not vulnerable to a first strike. This gives us more time to decide whether or not to launch, and is therefore less prone to such an accident. Since we have plenty of submarine-launched nuclear weapons for deterrence, Ellsberg suggests that not only do we have no use for the land-based missiles, but that they're actually making us less safe.

I start by pan-frying the chicken because my wife doesn't believe me that it'll cook either way. Add salt/pepper to both sides

Why then, do we still have them? Ellsberg gives two reasons. First, a standard military-industrial complex explanation: A lot of money goes into building and maintaining the bombs and the delivery systems, representing a lot of peoples' jobs, a lot of companies' profits, and a lot of congresspersons' districts. Once we started building them, there was a large economic and political incentive to just keep going.

But he also gives another, more game theoretic reason: Since there's no rational reason to have them, keeping them around makes us seem crazy. A perfectly rational United States would never launch their missiles first, because they know the counterattack would destroy everything. A rational actor would only keep enough missiles as needed for deterrence, for which our submarine-launched missiles would suffice. But the fact that we have so many missiles, including a large number of highly vulnerable land-based ones at known locations, signals to other nations that we aren't a perfectly rational actor.

A rational America couldn't use its nuclear weapons for leverage to extract concessions from our enemies, since they know we aren't crazy enough to use them. But a crazy leader, or even one with a small probability of being crazy, could credibly threaten use of such weapons to get other countries to fall in line. This logic is associated with the “madman theory”, a phrase coined by Richard Nixon himself. Now, Ellsberg admits, as many disarmament proponents would not, that there is at least some advantage to being seen as threatening in this way. But, he stresses, that advantage is not worth the risk.

The expected value calculation of this strategy must compare the upside, which is various small diplomatic concessions, to the probability of the downside, which is the destruction of our society and the killing of nearly everyone on earth. And the downside isn't unlikely: A 2008 survey of catastrophic risk experts puts the probability of nuclear war in the 21st century (that kills at least 1 billion people) at 10%, and a 2024 RAND study concludes that “estimates that a nuclear war will occur during the 21st century vary from negligible to greater than 80%”. We can meaningfully reduce this risk by eliminating our land-based silos, even unilaterally. But since the downside seems very abstract, we prefer to look menacing and unpredictable on the world stage, even though the benefits of doing so are not very large.

If you have extra chicken you can give some to my cat

The current administration seems particularly prone to this kind of thinking. We are now in the middle of a trade war which consists of a hard-to-follow regime of proposed tariffs, postponements, counter-tariffs, name-calling, boycotts, and a general loss of goodwill. This all adds up to a sort of madman theory of international trade. Economists broadly agree that tariffs, especially nonspecific ones, end up harming the economy by forcing inefficient allocation of labor and capital. A rational leader therefore would never employ them because it's not in their nation's self-interest. But a crazy-seeming leader could use the threat of them to extract concessions from trade partners.

We should, like Ellsberg, admit that there could in theory be at least some benefit to having the ability to make such threats. We are getting at least nominal concessions from Mexico and Canada on immigration and drug trafficking. But, like in the ICBM case, those concessions are small or symbolic, and the harms from the trade war will be real and large. There are the direct harms of higher prices borne by American consumers. But there are also the indirect harms of the loss of trust by our longtime trade partners, and the possible restructuring of global supply chains to increasingly exclude the United States. These harms are hard to quantify, but in expected value they likely dwarf any benefits.

We are also now implying that we won't defend certain NATO allies unless they "pay up". Some countries like Estonia and Poland exceed the 2% of GDP which is the NATO military spending target, but others like Spain and Italy fall well short of it. Because of this, we now say we are justified in abandoning our Article 5 obligation to come to their collective defense. Again, this madman theory of alliances works at least a little: European countries really are stepping up to spend more on defense. But the harm to the alliance is enormous.

Loss of faith in NATO’s bedrock principle of collective defense renders it substantially less effective at deterrence, making everyone, including the US, less secure. Uncertainty about future NATO protection also seems likely to lead to new arms races and nuclear proliferation, a major dynamic that NATO exists to prevent in the first place. Put another way, there has been a long-term trend since WWII of reducing global military expenditures as a percentage of world GDP, but total defense spending is just now starting to creep up again. It would be a real failure of coordination if this trend reverses after decades of relative peace.

At the same time, we are now firing tens of thousands of federal workers, seemingly at random, sometimes without realizing what those workers did, sometimes attempting to rehire them the next day or after courts deem the firings illegal. The administration is proceeding here at lightning speed, as if they know it must be done before finding out what those workers do, or they'll lose their nerve. The ostensible purpose of doing this, to balance the budget, seems implausible. The government is also planning sweeping new tax cuts, firing the IRS workers needed to collect any money, and has in any event spent more money so far than it did over the equivalent period last year. And if the goal is merely to shrink the size of the federal government, why do it so haphazardly?

The real reason seems to be simply to communicate vindictiveness and capriciousness to the remaining federal workforce as a tactic to cow them into compliance. It will be much harder to speak out against immoral, stupid, or illegal executive actions when everyone knows they can be fired at a moment's notice. This may seem like a kind of political victory to a White House that wants absolute control over the federal agencies, but the cost of all this will be very high, even from their perspective. Thousands of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more are unsure if or when they will lose their jobs. Workers are angry, and much of the usually nonpolitical federal workforce now seems galvanized against the executive. In the likely event that the chaos caused by all this causes any new problems, and those problems eventually have to be fixed at the taxpayer's expense, it's not obvious that this will even save any money in the long run.

I'm only crying because I'm chopping onions, I swear

In 1988, economist Robert Frank wrote a classic book examining the game theory and evolution of human emotions. Emotions, he explains, serve as commitment devices that allow us to credibly communicate to others that we will behave in a certain way, even when it would be "unopportunistic" in the present moment.

For example, if Alice experiences strong guilt about lying, she can be expected to be honest even in situations where honesty isn't in her interest. If this tendency toward honesty is recognized by others, either through visible signs of her emotions or from her reputation, then she can benefit from positive interactions with people who would not otherwise have been able to trust her. Similarly if Bob is a vengeful person, someone known to be prone to anger, he can be expected to act punitively toward others in response to real and perceived slights, even when this results in violence that would harm him too. This can be, and often is, disastrous. But it can also be broadly rational in the sense that Bob's reputation for retributiveness can deter cheating against him and allow him to gain concessions from others who might fear violence.

Frank also discusses the possibility of strategically pretending to have a certain emotion: "If there are genuine advantages in being vengeful or trustworthy and being perceived as such, there are even greater advantages in appearing to have, but not actually having, these qualities." This, in essence, is the basis of the madman strategy. That is, we'd like to have our reputational cake and eat it too. We'd like to have others think we are honest, but still be able to keep the money we find in a wallet in an empty parking lot. Nixon would like to attain the benefits of seeming irrational to his adversaries (such as a stronger bargaining position), while secretly being too rational to suffer the risks (such as the harms from actually following through on his threats in a way that might lead to war).

I guess I'll need a can opener after all.

Could such a strategy work? In theory, yes, but it's worth remembering that Nixon's madman strategy wasn't particularly successful. His canonical example was wanting the North Vietnamese to think he was so crazy that they'd sue for peace, which they didn't. Often Nixon incurred the risks of appearing irrational while still not receiving the purported benefit.

To wit: In October of 1969, he ordered the Pentagon to come up with options to substantially increase US military readiness in a way that would be detected by the Soviet Union, but could be kept secret from the American public. The result was Operation Giant Lance, wherein the US loaded thermonuclear weapons onto B-52 bombers and flew them in ellipses around the north pole, straying close to Soviet airspace. No one, not even the military officers in charge of the operation, were informed of the reasons for doing this, but later interviews of officials in the White House showed that the purpose was to put pressure on the USSR to end the war in Vietnam.

Although Nixon ordered the operation to be "safe", there were still real risks. It was opposed by his own secretary of defense as too dangerous, and indeed later review showed that the bombers were sometimes flown dangerously close together. Further, while the Soviet Union was aware of the US increased readiness posture, there is no evidence that they understood it had anything to do with Vietnam, and they were in any event distracted by a serious border conflict with China. In short, Nixon neither ate nor had his cake.

But Nixon was at least self-aware enough to conceive of seeming to be a madman as an intentional strategy. The fact that he explicitly intended to look irrational to his enemies implies that he understood that the president appearing to be angry and irrational might be beneficial, but the president actually being angry and irrational would not.

Our current leaders are deploying what appear to be madman strategies left and right, not against our enemies but against ourselves and our allies, and the madness might not be feigned. One could debate how well-suited anger is to even an individual in our modern society, but it's certainly not well designed to direct policy at the scale of nations. States and state institutions don't necessarily respond like individuals, and often foreign leaders cannot give up demanded concessions, even if they wanted to, because of domestic political pressure. Thus, threatening various kinds of brinkmanship every time a foreign leader shows insufficient gratitude, or in some cases, refuses to be annexed, will lead to a world permanently on the brink.

Could this really all be for show? Maybe behind closed doors they really are thinking carefully about this and have determined that this is all in the nation's best interests? Insider accounts of the 2017-era White House do not bode well for this hypothesis, and we have every reason to expect the level of competence, comprehension and carefulness to be lower this time around. The madman strategy never worked very well, but every day it looks more and more like this isn't even a strategy. It looks like impulsive, emotional, and reactive decision-making on the national and international stage. The current administration is modifying America's reputation toward one of a country that is angrier, less cooperative, and less trustworthy. There have been many attempts to reverse engineer some kind of underlying strategy behind all of the recent contradictory actions. But really, isn't the current chaos exactly what we would expect if there was no strategy at all?

Looks like this pre-cook. I put it in for 6 hours on low, or basically until the chicken is tender enough to shred without trying very hard

Meanwhile, the missiles still sleep in their silos. We seem quite far from a world in which we perform sober cost-benefit analyses to determine the net outcomes of our national strategies, and farther still from a world in which our leaders pay attention to them. Daniel Ellsberg died in June 2023 of pancreatic cancer. In a final interview, he concludes saying "...my work of the past 40 years to avert the prospects of nuclear war has little to show for it. But I wanted to say that I could think of no better way to use my time and that as I face the end of my life, I feel joy and gratitude." I'm sure gonna miss Daniel Ellsberg.

• 1-1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs

• 1 yellow onion, diced

• 1-1/2 tablespoons minced garlic (about 3 cloves? I don’t know we cheat and use the stuff from a jar)

• 4 cups chicken broth

• 1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed

• 1 (15 oz) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed

• 2 (4 oz) cans diced green chiles (1 hot, 1 mild)

• 1 (10 oz) can Rotel diced tomatoes with green chiles, (don't drain)

• 1 (15 oz) can corn, drained

• 1-1/2 tsp cumin

• 1 tsp chili powder

• 1 tsp onion powder

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp black pepper

• 1 tsp oregano

• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or up to 1 tsp if you hate yourself)

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened and cubed

• 1/4 cup half and half

• Sliced jalapeños (for topping)

• Sour cream and/or shredded cheese (for topping)

• Wonton strips (trust me about this)

Instructions

1. Pan-fry the chicken thighs, about 5 minutes per side on medium heat (you can skip this step if you want, we're just slightly paranoid)

2. Place chicken thighs on the bottom of the crockpot

3. Add diced onion, minced garlic, beans, corn, green chiles, and Rotel tomatoes

4. Pour in the 3-1/2 cups (almost all) of the chicken broth

5. Add the seasonings: cumin, chili powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, oregano, and cayenne pepper

6. Stir to combine

7. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours (or on high for 3-4 hours), until chicken is tender

8. Remove chicken and shred with two forks, then return to the pot

9. Add cream cheese and half and half. Stir until cream cheese is fully melted, about 15 minutes

10. If the chili is now too thick you can add some of the extra chicken broth as needed

11. Serve hot and top with jalapeños, sour cream, shredded cheese, wonton strips

12. Try to eat the soup before my cat does (he is in your house somehow)