Game Theory in the war in Ukraine
Hadfield , A. (2022, March 24). Ukraine War: What game theory can tell us about how negotiations might go. The Conversation. Retrieved September 13, 2022, from https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-game-theory-can-tell-us-about-how-negotiations-might-go-179784
In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and started a war. As the war progressed, both sides were hit hard: Russia is locked in a war of attrition, demoralized, and Mired in war. Despite Ukraine’s impressive defensive capabilities, there is still a power gap between the two sides, and Ukraine has lost some territory. As the war progressed, the two sides fell into a zero-sum game. In March, the two sides were planning talks. Through game theory, we can analyze and speculate about the possible choices of the two sides and the countries of the world. In this process, the likelihood of clear escalation set against de-escalation, the diplomatic counter escalation by other countries, and the likelihood of either side winning or losing affect the strategic choice of both sides. The international community wants its forces to “win”. But it is almost impossible for every country to “win”. Given Russia’s inhumane invasion of Ukraine, it is almost impossible for Ukraine to accept a Russian victory. Thus, in order to stop the violence, the negotiations need to achieve a series of victories and losses.
The international community is like a tightly connected network. Each country is connected with other countries, and the actions of one government affect the actions of other countries. In diplomatic actions, every country wants to maximize its own interests, regardless of the interests of other countries. The same is true in Ukraine’s war with Russia. Before the war began, neither Russia nor Ukraine chose to go to war and maintained a delicate balance. Maybe this is a Nash equilibrium. But the Russians wanted something more significant: they wanted to occupy Ukrainian land and force demilitarization of Ukraine, so they went to war and upset the Nash equilibrium. Nash equilibrium is broken, and both sides in the war hope to get more benefits. Therefore, in the zero-sum game, both sides in the war will make more threats to the enemy and try their best to win the war. We can also see from the war to this day, that peace talks have not achieved the goal, the war is still going on.
Moreover, as countries in the world are closely connected, many countries participated in this war together, and many countries provided military support and economic assistance to Ukraine, and their actions were also for the greater interests of their own countries. Under the joint action of many forces, it is more and more difficult to achieve a win-win equilibrium, because each side wants to achieve greater interests and more severely hurt the enemy. The victory of the enemy is not accepted, which increases the zero-sum game and tensions in the world. As the war goes on, the possibility of peace talks becomes more and more remote, and the situation of the war will become tenser and tenser. Since a country cannot predict whether other countries will take actions, they can only take actions that maximize the interests of their own country and ignore the interests of other countries.