Word.ws English Dictionary

madman theory

madman theory noun: an element of U.S. President Richard Nixon's foreign policy, by which Nixon was portrayed as irrational and volatile toward leaders of hostile Communist nations, with the aim of making them fearful of provoking the United States.

Noun

madman theory

  1. (US, historical) An element of U.S. President Richard Nixon's foreign policy, by which Nixon was portrayed as irrational and volatile toward leaders of hostile Communist nations, with the aim of making them fearful of provoking the United States.
    • The template is [Richard] Nixon’s “madman theory” of diplomatic engagement – shorthand for prompting your adversaries to doubt your sanity and mental instability to the point where they are intimidated into otherwise unlikely concessions.2026 April 8, Robert Tait, “Trump may be using Nixon’s ‘madman theory’ – and similar infamy may await”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 08 Apr 2026

Questions about madman theory

What does madman theory mean?
Madman theory means an element of U.S. President Richard Nixon's foreign policy, by which Nixon was portrayed as irrational and volatile toward leaders of hostile Communist nations, with the aim of making them fearful of provoking the United States.
What part of speech is madman theory?
Madman theory is a noun.

Words near madman theory in the dictionary

  1. madlings
  2. Madlock
  3. Madlocks
  4. madly
  5. madman
  6. madman theory
  7. madmen
  8. madnep
  9. madneps
  10. madness
  11. madnesses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: madman theory (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “madman theory.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/madman_theory. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.