Game Theory and North Korea
Game theory is used to predict outcomes with mathematical models. As a field it became popularized around the 1940s as a way to predict outcomes in wars and large-scale scenarios, and as seen in this article, game theory is still being used to this day to analyze outcomes in the real world.
This article, titled “What game theory tells us about nuclear war with North Korea,” published in the Washington Post describes how game theory can be used to predict wars. The context of the article is based on the rising tensions between the US and North Korea. In the article, they mention the Prisoner’s Dilemma and explain how it relates to nuclear war. However, there is an important difference to mention: The prisoner’s dilemma assumes there is no future. In the original Prisoner’s Dilemma, there is only one move made, one game, so the dominant strategy may be more a more hawkish one than not. But in a “game” where players, in this case the U.S. and North Korea, are in a long-term correspondence, they are making their calculations not just about today but about tomorrow. That is why each country has an incentive to cooperate. Players in a single-move Prisoner’s Dilemma may act against their own interest in the short-term because there is no chance of retaliation. This is what happened during the Soviet War, and this article argues that the US and North Korea are almost in a similar sort of Prisoner’s Dilemma. However, North Korea does not have the same military power as the US does, so the situation is not quite parallel.
This is all related to what we discussed in class regarding game theory and the concept of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Prisoner’s Dilemma is a model that predicts the best possible outcome in a 2-person uncooperative game. The outcome for one player is dependent on the choice that the other makes, and vice versa. The best case outcome is the outcome that is best despite which choice the other player makes. I agree with the article in that given the longer-term relationship between the two countries makes the game more difficult to predict. I also think the current mercurial leaders of both North Korea and the US make the “game” so much more complex. Let’s hope both sides can realize that without knowing how the other player is going to play, the best strategy is a more cooperative one.