Threats are nearly always foolish and destructive, yet our political leaders continue to make them. President Barack Obama threatened to go to war with Syria if they used chemical weapons. The government shut down because the House of Representatives and the Senate couldn’t agree on the funding of the Affordable Care Act.
The problem with threats is that they are an overreaction. Obama did not want Syria to use chemical weapons. Yet from the perspective of the Syrian government, use of this weaponry was necessary for their survival. Obama recognized this, so he made a threat. He had to threaten to overreact in order to change the incentive structure in his favor.
A similar story can be told of the fiasco of the shutdown the Republicans orchestrated these past few weeks. Republicans don’t like Obamacare but Democrats love it and have no reason to defund it. Republicans had to threaten to overreact to change the minds of Democrats. They had to orchestrate a reason for the Democrats to defund their prized legislation.
It all would have worked — and worked beautifully — if the threatened party actually believed the threats. A war with the United States is an extremely good reason to not use chemical weapons. And a real government shutdown is far worse than a defunded health reform bill.
But the Syrians didn’t actually believe the U.S. would go to war with them, and the Democrats did not actually believe the Republicans would shut down the government (for longer than a week or so). They did not believe these threats for the very reason they made threats in the first place — they were overreactions.
Contrary to what many people want to believe, neither Obama nor the Republicans are irrational, crazy or stupid. So when they threaten to do irrational, stupid or crazy things, no one will believe them.
Their bluff was called, and they came out of it looking reckless.