The Human Predisposition to Hawk in the Theatre of War
Original Article: https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/13/why-hawks-win/
The Hawk-Dove Game as we know it is quite simple. Each player is either a hawk or a dove. To be in pure strategy Nash Equilibrium, one must be a hawk while the other is a dove for payoffs of 1 and 5, respectively. In international relations, the game is not so simple. The choice of whether to be a hawk or dove is still somewhat based on the opponent’s actions, but there is a catch: a bias in favor of hawkish beliefs and preferences is actually built into the human mind. In fact, in 40 years’ worth of psychological data on biases, all of them favor hawks. For example, people usually have an optimistic bias, or exaggerate their strengths. This makes politicians and generals more receptive to advisors who boast more favorable outcomes of war. In turn, this may cause premature decisions or hawkish moves when diplomatic dove moves may be better suited for the situation. Basically, humans have overwhelming hawkish biases that make wars more likely to begin and more difficult to end.
So how does this affect our basic hawk-dove game? Are the pure strategy Nash Equilibria actually likely in a real theatre of war? In short, no. Though the simple game shows that actors get a payoff of 0 if they both select hawk, humans are psychologically predisposed to selecting hawk. That does not mean it is always wrong to choose hawk but that human hawk biases are more persuasive than they deserve to be. The simple game may be able to predict outcomes for one variable of negotiations, but states consider a myriad of variables when at war, like adversary intelligence and capabilities, so many small games would be necessary. Furthermore, there are tangible payoffs and costs to war. If the United States decides to be a hawk and incite war with Russia while Russia chooses to remain diplomatic, the US does not just get some arbitrary payoff of 5. Perhaps at the exact moment of declaring war they get a qualified payoff 5x better than Russia’s payoff, but this payoff is not certain or permanent. The US may be dovish for their next move as part of a larger strategy, or Russia may choose to be hawkish, or any combination. A game as simple as this one cannot adequately be applied to the theatre of war because there is too much at stake and too many factors to consider.