A good pizza can brighten your day, liven up a party… Or give you a surprising forewarning, and certainly a warning that the planet is about to be rocked by an international crisis. According to this. The last statement may sound a bit strange, but it is based on historical facts and a concept that has been studied by geostrategists for decades: Pizza Meter or Pizzómetro.

Its premise couldn’t be simpler. When things get complicated and officials from the Pentagon or the White House stay in their offices at night making decisions that will affect the rest of the world, they turn to the local pizzerias to fill their stomachs. In other words: Be concerned if you find an unusual number of delivery people calling the Pentagon at night. It is often synonymous with an approaching storm.

It happened in the Gulf War, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, the invasion of Panama… and according to information circulating on X this weekend, it again coincided with Iran’s attack on Israel. So the real question is: What is Pizzometer and what can it tell us about the Middle East?

Pentagon’s pizzeria. The story of the Pizzómetro (Pizza Counter) is best told at the end, as the concept (a term that is not new at all) has gained renewed traction in recent days via a tweet. Over the weekend, several screenshots were released showing an increase in activity at a Papa Johns pizza chain location very close to the Pentagon on X, which coincided with Iran’s attack on Israel. While tensions were tightening in the Middle East, an insatiable appetite for food emerged in the Pentagon. fast food Italian.

Causation or Pizzometer? The launch of Iranian missiles and the baking of pizza in Virginia (USA) may seem like two unrelated events, but they dusted off an old concept that international diplomacy on networks has used for more than three decades: the Pizza Meter or Pizzametro.

The logic couldn’t be simpler: when things get complicated or a global crisis looms, White House or Pentagon officials are forced to stay up late and eat dinner in their offices. And this inevitably happens due to the increase in calls to the nearest pizzerias. This has happened a few times before. And this again appeared to coincide with the attack on Israel.

Click on the image to go to the tweet.

Skip the free (pizza) service on networks. “There is something called the ‘Pizza Meter’, an indicator that evaluates the US’s involvement in global crises based on the occupancy rate of local pizzerias in the Pentagon, where the US Department of Defense is located. It looked like this yesterday.”, he tweeted on Sunday. User Donald_PL_ next to a screenshot showing increased Saturday night activity at a location at the Extreme Pizza pizza chain.

He wasn’t the only one to draw the strange connection between Italian cuisine and high politics. Something similar was done by another X user who highlighted: suspicious increase Activity at Papa Johns near the Pentagon. They also talked about the old concept of Pizzómetro or Pizzint, which stands for “Pizza Intelligence.” Other usersto contain political scientists.

Curious yes, new no. The Pizzómetro incident may remain countless incidents. In 1998, the newspaper already mentioned it Washington Post In an article he describes how, when the American capital was put on alert, demand for pizza picked up until it could feed delivery drivers.

“Call it the Washington pizza index: The bigger the crisis and the longer government officials are locked in their offices, the more pizza they eat,” History began. Its author quoted Frank Meeks, owner of dozens of Domino’s stores in the Washington area, who talked about the enormous amounts of pizza ordered to the Pentagon at critical moments such as the Gulf War or the crisis that unfolded for Clinton in ’98: the Lewinski trial.

Click on the image to go to the tweet.

Seismographs? No: better pizzas. Meeks’ conclusion was clear, and it certainly didn’t sound crazy: These “booms” in pizza deliveries occurred just before or after historical turning points, when a crisis arose or an emergency arose. Rafid Ahnaf recently pointed out on Medium that the Pizza Meter theory is supported by what happened during the Gulf War or the EDSA Revolution in the Philippines. For example, just before the Gulf War began, the White House went from ordering less than 50 pizzas a day to 125. The Pentagon was not far behind: demand increased sixfold.

Pizzas… and discretion. Pentagon officials may order (lots of) pizza from fast-food chains; but they love discretion even more. Coincidence or not, it is said that government agencies stopped ordering pizzas from their stores after Meeks shared the Pizzometer phenomenon with the press. “The media don’t always know when something big is going to happen because they’re in bed, but our delivery people are there at two in the morning,” he boasted.

In any case, his name is part of Pizza Meter’s strange chronicle, a history punctuated by fascinating stories that are not always easy to confirm, such as those that suggest even Soviet intelligence began paying attention to the flow of pizza makers. Entering and exiting US Government offices. If his speed was faster than normal, that meant “Pizzint” was activated… and the twists and turns were coming, one way or another.

Image | Wikipedia and Nix Company (Unsplash)

in Xataka | This is how the 1995 movie ‘The Network’ with Sandra Bullock inspired the creation of the first major online pizzeria.