Calling Donald Trump "erratic", "incoherent", or "unstable" has become a reflex for many. I get it, it is a comforting explanation.
And it allows immediate dismissal without analysis. If he's crazy there's nothing to analyze, right?
That reflex is false. And more importantly, it is dangerous.
It reveals a failure in how power is being read in a world that has changed its nature.
In this piece, I will:
- lay out what defines a strategist,
- then examine yesterday's Trump's speech in Davos as a case study,
- revisit the so-called "Madman Theory",
- and finally explain why, when strategic reading fails, reality itself gets pathologized.
Before asking the only question that matters: who really looks crazy?
What a real strategist actually is
Trump is called "crazy" by "strategists" unable to practice... strategy. I've met some of those who call themselves "strategists" in important rooms, or so they think.
They are intelligent, educated and impressive in theory. But their competence depends on one condition: that reality behaves as expected. As long as actors remain legible, coherent, and explainable, they analyze. The moment an actor operates outside their frames, they label.
In reality: they are commentators, not strategists.
A real strategist is defined by three rare invariants.
Miss one, and strategy collapses into reaction.
1. Identifying the nature of the situation before acting
Most strategic failures come from misidentifying the nature of the situation. Is this: a market problem? a political problem? a narrative problem? a structural shift?
Most leaders at this stage already apply the wrong frame.
A strategist starts: by naming the terrain correctly. Without that, every action is already wrong.
Trump behaves as if:
- the liberal international order is already fragmented,
- alliances are transactional rather than ideological/moral,
- politics has become a permanent war of perception.
Trump ACTS as if the structure has already changed. Whether one agrees with his conclusions is secondary. The diagnosis itself is internally coherent.
2. Knowing when action is counterproductive
In unstable environments, acting too quickly is a strategic error.
Speaking, reacting, "doing something" can lock you into a frame designed by others, reduce your future options and turn a favorable ambiguity into exposure.
A strategist understands that restraint isn't passivity. It's a way to preserve freedom, to preserve options and to create asymmetries.
Trump appears hyperactive. But contrary to what his image produces, Trump does not act constantly. He produces noise constantly.
Pay close attention:
- Many announcements are not followed by action.
- Many threats exist only to shift the center of gravity.
- Many silences occur precisely when a response is expected.
The effect is predictable: the adversary reacts, over-interprets, exhausts itself.
Noise fills the space. Optionality remains intact.
3. Maintaining coherence while adapting posture
This is the rarest and most misunderstood invariant. Donald Trump actually excels in it.
You don't recognize a strategist with what he says. You don't recognize a strategist with what he does. You recognize a strategist with what he NEVER sacrifices.
When environments become unstable, weak leaders abandon thier core logic, they change narratives fast, and accumulate public contradictions.
A real strategist can change allies, tone, tempo, tactics. But he does not change what he stands for, how he decides, what he refuses to trade.
The CORE identity remains stable, only the posture moves.
Since 2016, Trump's core has been readable:
- sovereignty > multilateralism,
- power relations > institutions and norms,
- national economic interest > global abstractions,
- strong executive authority.
This core does not change over time. What has changed and will keep on changing are: his tone, the alliances... the surface.
What many call "craziness" is in fact noise around a fixed axis.
Yesterday, Trump gave us a live demonstration of this logic on the Davos stage.
Case study: Trump at Davos (Jan. 21, 2026)
What will most people remember from Trump's Davos speech?
The jokes, the insults, the provocations (Greenland reduced to "a big piece of ice", selling windmills to the "stupid people that buy them!" and so many more).
Now strip the speech of its noise and a stable structure appears. The same one, repeated obsessively, across different topics: