On The Ultimate End Game
Link to source: Click here.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, game theory is the “…analysis of strategies for dealing with competitive situations where the outcome of a participant’s choice of action depends critically on the actions of other participants.” Nowhere are the action decisions of adversaries more consequential than in geopolitics among nuclear armed powers. An article appearing in the March 19, 2022 issue of the Journal, The Economist, offers insight into the application of game theory to nuclear deterrence: The disturbing new relevance of theories of nuclear deterrence
Lessons from the work of Thomas Schelling (unauthored).
The article begins by citing the work of 2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science winner Thomas Schelling on the application of game theory to war. Schelling modeled war as a game between rational adversaries who balanced gains possible from waging war against the cost to one’s own country of waging war. A rational player can be deterred from engaging in nuclear war if the damage that would be done by a retaliatory strike is unacceptable. This led to the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction which is a Nash Equilibrium of sorts in which the knowledge that either the United States or the Soviet Union could unleash nuclear devastation on an adversary even after absorbing a first nuclear strike.
Comment. While game theory is extensively used in war gaming, a cautionary note seems appropriate in applying the outcomes of such games to geopolitical decision-making. Specifically, the notion of what represents a rational player could be very different for people on different sides. For instance, an economist at Harvard with a PhD in economics may see the payoffs and costs used in the game quite differently from a Soviet General who saw tens of millions of his countrymen die in World War 2. That is, there may be asymmetry of perception regarding payoffs and costs. Indeed, even the motives of the “players” could be quite different For example, a United States President with the best interests of the United States citizenry animating his/her decision-making versus a Soviet autocrat motivated by self-preservation within the Soviet governmental apparatus. So, limitations in the real-world applicability of game theory may, at least at times, be inherent, not in the relevant mathematics, but in the assumptions required to generate the game.