ABSTRACT
Risk propensity on the part of decision-makers is an important dimension in the analysis of crazy states. In terms of strategic analysis of crazy states, the primary focus is on those national goals which involve external aggression. Containment is not the strategic answer to crazy states, since it is based on an assumption that if foreign policy successes are denied aggressive nations, then domestic constituencies will insist on change and thus moderate expansion. Thus, even in Nazi Germany, the first tentative steps in foreign affairs were nothing more than incremental muddling through, with Adolf Hitler assuring visitors that there would be no change in the policy laid down. To some degree, the institutional chaos in the Third Reich was a result of Hitler's calculated policy of divide and rule. In the case of Nazi Germany, there is a broad historical school, the so-called intentionalists, that views as the principal force in the Third Reich whose personality and ideology drove events.
