Game Theory and the Cuban Missile Crisis
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/2/1/20/pdf
The article by Frank Zagare examines the history of game theoretic explanations of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day confrontation between the US and the USSR over Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba—a confrontation that placed the world on the verge of a nuclear Armageddon. Thomas Schelling, in Arms and Influence(1966), described the Cuban crisis as a “competition in risk-taking”, similar to the structural dynamics of a 2×2 game of Chicken. In such a game, the US and the USSR are a collision course, and Conflict (mutual defection) is the mutually worst outcome. Each player most prefers to win (i.e. defect while the other player cooperates), but would rather cooperate than enter into a conflict (think Mutually Assured Destruction).
In the Cuban Missile Crisis, there were two pure Nash equilibria, corresponding to the US winning (US defects while USSR cooperates) or the USSR winning (USSR defects while US cooperates). The player who is the first to make a threat would theoretically force the other player to swerve, thus the former’s chances of winning. We observed this “first move” in the form of President Kennedy’s televised threat of a nuclear response to the Soviet Union on October 22, 1962. Thereafter, the US continued “driving straight” without swerving by forming a naval blockade around Cuba, thus forcing the USSR to concede rather than allow the crisis to spiral into a full-blown war. Publicly, Premier Khrushchev then agreed to dismantle Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba. Hence, the US won the game of Chicken by beating the USSR in resolve and the credibility of its threats.
That being said, Zagare argues that Schelling’s theoretical explanation of the Cuban Missile Crisis was not quite accurate. There was a lack of compelling evidence that President Kennedy or Premier Khrushchev calibrated their threats with the intent of inducing the other to back down, hence undermining the strategic dynamic of the conflict. Furthermore, it could be argued that neither player actually “won” the game of Chicken, as the US also conceded by dismantling its ballistic missiles in Turkey and agreeing to avoid invading Cuba.
Hi, I am a student at Loyola Marymount University who is writing on the limits of game theory when discussing the Cuban Missile Crisis. I would love to use this as a source for my paper. Thank you.