Pakistan-India Game Theory
As we can see from all the blog posts on this webpage, the information we learn is not purely academic — it has applications to the real world. The India – Pakistan negotiations, like so many other events, can be modeled with the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Last month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sat down with Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif. Although there was no publicized agenda about what the two leaders were planning to talk about, we can analyze this meeting from a game-theory standpoint.
If we consider the entirety of the Indian-Pakistanian conflict, we can see that this meeting was a small, calculated move made in a much bigger game centered around game theory. As we all know, game theory (and Prisoner’s Dilemma) centers around the choices two prisoners can make (cooperate or not cooperate) and the expected payoffs for each prisoner based on their decision and the other prisoner’s decision. However, unlike the game theory examples we cover in class, India and Pakistan’s relationship is a single instance of game theory that consists of many smaller instances of game theory, where each new action is influence is affected by the decisions leading up to that point. If we model this improvised version of game theory around Narendra Modi’s actions, then we can view his act of sitting down with Nawaz Sharif as an act of cooperation. According to the newspaper article, academic research papers have concluded that the best tactic to take should you find yourself playing an instance of Prisoner’s Dilemma of this sort is to use a “tit-for-tat” approach. That is, you start by cooperating and then proceed to mimic what your opponent chooses to do. Then, you continue to cooperate until your opponent decides to not cooperate, in which case, you return the favor by not cooperating as well.
The tactic presented by the research papers mentioned in the article seem to be a best response for both players. The best case scenario is if both countries choose to cooperate – then, no question, everyone is happy. The trickier scenario is if one country chooses to cooperate while the other country chooses to not cooperate. As the article points out, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chose to continue cooperating even when the opposition’s strategy was to not cooperate. This led his opponents to call him “weak” and incapable of holding office. So, it seems that if the opposition is not cooperating, the correct option is not to cooperate – this leaves not cooperating as the only other option, and consequently, the best response.
In sitting down with Nawaz Sharif, Modi announced that he is ready to cooperate with Pakistan. And, if Sharif understands game theory, then two countries with a bloody history will find a way to coexist together.
Sources:
http://www.firstpost.com/world/tit-for-tat-with-pakistan-game-theory-suggests-what-pm-modi-did-was-right-1672387.html
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-09-15/news/53942846_1_narendra-modi-nawaz-sharif-meeting-pakistan-high-commissioner-kashmiri-separatists