How many pizzas is your crisis worth?
- Pablo Díaz Gayoso
- Mar 3
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 24
Determining how serious a crisis is is not always easy because no two situations are the same. However, the efforts of crisis cabinets can be counted, at least in terms of the time they spend together managing an adverse situation. To this end, the concept of the “pizzometer” has become popular: measuring how serious a political crisis is by counting the number of pizzas ordered at the seats of power. The original idea was born in the United States and its premise is simple: when things get tense for Uncle Sam, White House or Pentagon officials stay in their offices until late at night, making decisions that will affect the rest of the world, they end up calling on nearby pizzerias. The more serious the crisis and the more departments involved, the more delivery motorcycles will be used.
This peculiar way of calculating the importance of momentum provides a more striking than reliable indicator but nevertheless hints that something momentous is brewing. In the run-up to the start of the Gulf War in the 1990s, the White House and the Pentagon went from ordering about 50 pizzas a day to 125. Today this concept has been brought back into discussion by the crisis triggered by Israel's bombing of the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, killing 16 people, including senior members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on April 1. Iran's response was to launch a salvo of missiles and drones against Israel's Iron Dome (famous self-defense system) doing more symbolic than effective damage. Hours before the attack there was a peak of orders at Extreme Pizza, located 15 minutes from the White House.
This way of seeing that there is something important going on goes a long way back, as Soviet agents allegedly echoed this phenomenon as well. When late at night there was an increase in the number of vans at the gates of major U.S. Government headquarters, the Soviets would put their ear to the ground. The term then coined was “Pizzaint” (pizza+intelligence).
In short, the Pizzometer is a curious but potentially useful indicator of international tension. While it may sound like a humorous concept, it is based on actual observations and has proven to be a surprisingly accurate indicator of international crises. In the same way the consumption of other foods can be counted to gauge momentum, such as the increase in coffee, tea or other energy drinks. It is not strange to imagine this phenomenon occurring in all the world's capitals at times of heightened internal and external tension with country-specific culinary variants such as durum kebab, Chinese food or sushi.
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