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The Strategy of Conflict
A series of closely interrelated essays on game theory, this book deals with an area in which progress has been least satisfactory―the situations where there is a common interest as well as conflict between adversaries: negotiations, war and threats of war, criminal deterrence, extortion, tacit bargaining. It proposes enlightening similarities between, for instance, maneuvering in limited war and in a traffic jam; deterring the Russians and one’s own children; the modern strategy of terror and the ancient institution of hostages.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
About the author
Thomas C. Schelling
32 books211 followersThomas Crombie Schelling was an American economist and professor of foreign affairs, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College Park. He is also co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He was awarded the
2005 Nobel Prize in Economics
(shared with Robert Aumann) for "having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis."
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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January 28, 2021
Fans of blogs like
Slate Star Codex
Astral Codex Ten and Marginal Revolution will be familiar with the ideas in this book. As with other classics such as The Selfish Gene that have seeped into the culture, finally cracking into The Strategy of Conflict sometimes feels like reading a book you already know.
As with James Scott's Seeing Like a State, everyone's favourite book they haven't actually read, it's more important to understand Schelling's ideas than reading him. To be fair, this is true for almost all books. You still gain and add value when talking about books you haven't read, as long as you do so judiciously.
Remind yourself to read the history of ideas backwards, lest you think the ideas are too obvious. Schelling is the father of applied game theory. The ideas of coordinating around a commonly recognised point or strategically pre-committing yourself didn't exist before Schelling.
Anyone can read this book. It's academic at times, but as has been said by others, Schelling's great power is to discover deep insights without the need to deliver them in formalised ideas. It's also filled with many Schelling point game examples which are fun to play.
Schelling's influence
Thomas Schelling's intellectual output is staggering. He could have won multiple Nobel prizes. He also had real world impact, advising both the white house and Stanley Kubrick on nuclear deterrence. His multifarious contributions cover how people coordinate with or without communication, commitments such as promises and threats as strategic tactics, strength lying in weakness, tipping points and critical mass, self constraint and behavioural economics, and the economics of segregation.
He's influenced many popular thinkers too. Most notably Robert H. Frank who expanded on Schelling's idea of pre-commitment to describe how emotions work in Passions Within Reason. The psychologist David Pizarro joked on his podcast that it pains him that it took an economist to explain the emotions.
Psychologist Steven Pinker took Schelling's ideas on communication and common knowledge when explaining why people blurt out innuendo and euphemisms instead of saying what they really mean.
The economist Tyler Cowen's knack of applying economic thinking to people and complimenting theory with generalisable anecdotes without heavy abstraction is very Schellingian.
And of course Malcolm Gladwell popularised the ideas of tipping points and critical mass in his debut novel. To my knowledge, Gladwell didn't fall victim to any Igon Value problems in that book, so it's safe to recommend it as a gateway to some of Schelling's ideas.
The ideas covered in this book, The Strategy of Conflict, are Schelling points and pre-commitment.
Schelling Points
Schelling points, or focal points, allow people to coordinate when their communication is limited or impossible. As Schelling states:
Some other fun Schelling problems:
• You get $50 if you pick the same date of the year as someone else (who is also trying to pick the same date as you and will also be paid).
• You have to choose any number greater than zero. You get paid the equivalent of the number you pick granted your partner also picks that number (they get the money too).
Tyler Cowen asks his economics students what book would they leave a $100 bill in for their friend to find if they couldn't announce the book. Many suggest the bible. Cowen suggests A Strategy of Conflict if you are game theorists.
In the excellent mini-series Band of Brothers, American soldiers parachute from high altitude behind German enemy lines and get separated.
Once separated, if there is no pre-plans or ability to communicate, people tend towards a conspicuous point in the landscape in hope to reunite. If there is a (single) hill or a river, that is where you will head, because you will assume the others will think the same. Schelling thinks up several further examples with asymmetric communication and how that affects the coordination.
Schelling points give people something to rally around. San Francisco was a schelling point for tech startups. Matt Levine suggests arbitrary schelling points may drive some stock prices. Perhpas most importantly, Schelling points can be a bulwark against otherwise dangerous slippery slopes in policy design.
Similar to other game theory concepts like the prisoner's dilemma. Schelling points are beguilingly simple. Yet they play a large role in how human societies are structured.
Pre-commitment and weakness as strength
Sometimes you are better off if your choices are constrained. As per standard economic theory, having more choices is good. Usually. Schelling presents counterexamples to develop his theory of pre-commitment.
How do you win a game of chicken?
One way is to remove your steering wheel and hold it out the window. Your opponent now knows you can't swerve and is forced to concede.
It's vital you make your constraint unambiguously understood by your opponent (and that they understand that you understand that they understand, ad infinitum). The characters' failure, and source of comedy, with their doomsday machine in Kubrick's Dr Straneglove, was not communicating to their enemy that it will automatically detonate.
Pre-commitments can be used in conflict as credible threats. They can also be used to in cooperation (Schelling in fact emphasizes that conflict always has elements of cooperation and vice versa: No one wants mutual destruction and no one's preferences are perfectly aligned). If a kidnapper has a genuine change of heart and wants to set you free, you'll struggle to come to an agreement. You can't credibly promise that you won't dob him in. You may truly mean it now, but once free, you'll have no reason to keep the promise. One way to convince your kidnapper is give him blackmail leverage over you. Commit or confess an indecent act. Schelling also covers randomness or irrationality as being effective strategies.
Commitment strategies also relate to self-control. Schelling was a long-term smoker and was obsessed with learning strategies to help him quit. A common self-control method is to simply remove the need to practice self-control: Avoid tempting situations altogether. Psychologists sometimes call this Odyssian self-control after the story of Odysseus getting his crew mates to tie him to the mast to avoid falling victim to the siren songs.
We can do this by removing unhealthy food from the house or downloading an app that limits our access to other apps.
This book, and Schelling in general, contains deep and influential insights on game theory and human behaviour. I strongly recommend learning his ideas.
As with James Scott's Seeing Like a State, everyone's favourite book they haven't actually read, it's more important to understand Schelling's ideas than reading him. To be fair, this is true for almost all books. You still gain and add value when talking about books you haven't read, as long as you do so judiciously.
Remind yourself to read the history of ideas backwards, lest you think the ideas are too obvious. Schelling is the father of applied game theory. The ideas of coordinating around a commonly recognised point or strategically pre-committing yourself didn't exist before Schelling.
Anyone can read this book. It's academic at times, but as has been said by others, Schelling's great power is to discover deep insights without the need to deliver them in formalised ideas. It's also filled with many Schelling point game examples which are fun to play.
Schelling's influence
Thomas Schelling's intellectual output is staggering. He could have won multiple Nobel prizes. He also had real world impact, advising both the white house and Stanley Kubrick on nuclear deterrence. His multifarious contributions cover how people coordinate with or without communication, commitments such as promises and threats as strategic tactics, strength lying in weakness, tipping points and critical mass, self constraint and behavioural economics, and the economics of segregation.
He's influenced many popular thinkers too. Most notably Robert H. Frank who expanded on Schelling's idea of pre-commitment to describe how emotions work in Passions Within Reason. The psychologist David Pizarro joked on his podcast that it pains him that it took an economist to explain the emotions.
Psychologist Steven Pinker took Schelling's ideas on communication and common knowledge when explaining why people blurt out innuendo and euphemisms instead of saying what they really mean.
The economist Tyler Cowen's knack of applying economic thinking to people and complimenting theory with generalisable anecdotes without heavy abstraction is very Schellingian.
And of course Malcolm Gladwell popularised the ideas of tipping points and critical mass in his debut novel. To my knowledge, Gladwell didn't fall victim to any Igon Value problems in that book, so it's safe to recommend it as a gateway to some of Schelling's ideas.
The ideas covered in this book, The Strategy of Conflict, are Schelling points and pre-commitment.
Schelling Points
Schelling points, or focal points, allow people to coordinate when their communication is limited or impossible. As Schelling states:
People can often concert their intentions or expectations with others if each knows that the other is trying to do the samePeople converge on conspicuous points. For instance, people are able to coordinate on the red square with no communication:
Some other fun Schelling problems:
• You get $50 if you pick the same date of the year as someone else (who is also trying to pick the same date as you and will also be paid).
• You have to choose any number greater than zero. You get paid the equivalent of the number you pick granted your partner also picks that number (they get the money too).
Tyler Cowen asks his economics students what book would they leave a $100 bill in for their friend to find if they couldn't announce the book. Many suggest the bible. Cowen suggests A Strategy of Conflict if you are game theorists.
In the excellent mini-series Band of Brothers, American soldiers parachute from high altitude behind German enemy lines and get separated.
Once separated, if there is no pre-plans or ability to communicate, people tend towards a conspicuous point in the landscape in hope to reunite. If there is a (single) hill or a river, that is where you will head, because you will assume the others will think the same. Schelling thinks up several further examples with asymmetric communication and how that affects the coordination.
Schelling points give people something to rally around. San Francisco was a schelling point for tech startups. Matt Levine suggests arbitrary schelling points may drive some stock prices. Perhpas most importantly, Schelling points can be a bulwark against otherwise dangerous slippery slopes in policy design.
Similar to other game theory concepts like the prisoner's dilemma. Schelling points are beguilingly simple. Yet they play a large role in how human societies are structured.
Pre-commitment and weakness as strength
Sometimes you are better off if your choices are constrained. As per standard economic theory, having more choices is good. Usually. Schelling presents counterexamples to develop his theory of pre-commitment.
How do you win a game of chicken?
One way is to remove your steering wheel and hold it out the window. Your opponent now knows you can't swerve and is forced to concede.
It's vital you make your constraint unambiguously understood by your opponent (and that they understand that you understand that they understand, ad infinitum). The characters' failure, and source of comedy, with their doomsday machine in Kubrick's Dr Straneglove, was not communicating to their enemy that it will automatically detonate.
Pre-commitments can be used in conflict as credible threats. They can also be used to in cooperation (Schelling in fact emphasizes that conflict always has elements of cooperation and vice versa: No one wants mutual destruction and no one's preferences are perfectly aligned). If a kidnapper has a genuine change of heart and wants to set you free, you'll struggle to come to an agreement. You can't credibly promise that you won't dob him in. You may truly mean it now, but once free, you'll have no reason to keep the promise. One way to convince your kidnapper is give him blackmail leverage over you. Commit or confess an indecent act. Schelling also covers randomness or irrationality as being effective strategies.
Commitment strategies also relate to self-control. Schelling was a long-term smoker and was obsessed with learning strategies to help him quit. A common self-control method is to simply remove the need to practice self-control: Avoid tempting situations altogether. Psychologists sometimes call this Odyssian self-control after the story of Odysseus getting his crew mates to tie him to the mast to avoid falling victim to the siren songs.
We can do this by removing unhealthy food from the house or downloading an app that limits our access to other apps.
This book, and Schelling in general, contains deep and influential insights on game theory and human behaviour. I strongly recommend learning his ideas.
February 16, 2012
كنت مصاباً بالفرح.. لما عرفت أن أحد الدور العربية ترجمت هذا الكتاب الرائع.. ولكني عدت لوضعي الصحيح.. حيث الفرح هو أمر طارئ في ثقافة بلاد تعترف فقط بكتب الشعر والروايات.. وتهمل باقي أنواع الكتب..
ووضعني هذا الكتاب في نسخته العربية أما مأزق النجوم.. فالنسخة الأصلية تستحق على الأقل خمس نجمات بينما هذه النسخة ناقص نجمتان. وعند النظر لمن عمل على النسخة العربية، ترى مترجمان اثنان، والدار العربية للعلوم، وضع ثلاثة خطوط تحت العلوم، ومركز الجزيرة للدراسات.. وضع خطين تحت كلمة دراسات. كل هؤلاء لم ينتبهوا للخطأ الكبير الذي وقع فيه طباعة الكتاب بالعربية.. فرغم جودة الترجمة، ورغم وضع المصطلحات المهمة باللغة الانكليزية.. فالكتاب لا يحوي من رسومه وجداوله أكثر من شكلين أو ثلاث.. والتي بدونها لا يمكن فهم واستيعاب الأمثلة المرفقة.. وحتى المعادلات والمصفوفات.. كتبت بطريقة طلاسم المنجمين، لا بطريقة المعادلات الرياضية.. وإذا استخدمت نظرية المؤامرة في تفسير هذا الخطأ، قد يجنح فكري أن هذه النسخة للعوام والنسخة الكاملة مخصصة لآخرين من مبدأ "ما في بالميدان غير حمدان" (مفردها حمد).
وكان الحل أن أمنحه ثلاثة نجوم، من مبدأ "خير الأمور الوسط، لذلك كنا نقتل الأنبياء والمجرمين..
أهمية الكتاب تنبع من أنه يفسر طريقة التفكير الأمريكية في فترة الحرب الباردة، باستخدام نظرية الألعاب الاستراتيجية.. وتكشف كيف يفكرون حتى هذه اللحظة في كل صراعاتهم التي يخوضونها بشكل مباشر أو غير مباشر.. ولابد من ذكر أن مؤلف الكتاب حاصل على جائزة نوبل للاقتصاد عام 2005، ورغم أنه أستاذ جامعي، إلا أنه كان مستشاراً للرئيس الأمريكي في شؤون السياسة الخارجية.
بالرغم من عدم وجود الأشكال والرسوم.. تبقى الأمثلة التي ساقها المؤلف.. أكثر من رائعة.. وتدل على تفكير مصيب.. رغم أنني مازلت أكره تسخير العلم للحروب، وأعتقد أنه سيأتي يوم نسخر كل علومنا للخير والسلام.. حتى ذلك الوقت.. ينبغي لنا معرفة كيف يفكر الآخر
ووضعني هذا الكتاب في نسخته العربية أما مأزق النجوم.. فالنسخة الأصلية تستحق على الأقل خمس نجمات بينما هذه النسخة ناقص نجمتان. وعند النظر لمن عمل على النسخة العربية، ترى مترجمان اثنان، والدار العربية للعلوم، وضع ثلاثة خطوط تحت العلوم، ومركز الجزيرة للدراسات.. وضع خطين تحت كلمة دراسات. كل هؤلاء لم ينتبهوا للخطأ الكبير الذي وقع فيه طباعة الكتاب بالعربية.. فرغم جودة الترجمة، ورغم وضع المصطلحات المهمة باللغة الانكليزية.. فالكتاب لا يحوي من رسومه وجداوله أكثر من شكلين أو ثلاث.. والتي بدونها لا يمكن فهم واستيعاب الأمثلة المرفقة.. وحتى المعادلات والمصفوفات.. كتبت بطريقة طلاسم المنجمين، لا بطريقة المعادلات الرياضية.. وإذا استخدمت نظرية المؤامرة في تفسير هذا الخطأ، قد يجنح فكري أن هذه النسخة للعوام والنسخة الكاملة مخصصة لآخرين من مبدأ "ما في بالميدان غير حمدان" (مفردها حمد).
وكان الحل أن أمنحه ثلاثة نجوم، من مبدأ "خير الأمور الوسط، لذلك كنا نقتل الأنبياء والمجرمين..
أهمية الكتاب تنبع من أنه يفسر طريقة التفكير الأمريكية في فترة الحرب الباردة، باستخدام نظرية الألعاب الاستراتيجية.. وتكشف كيف يفكرون حتى هذه اللحظة في كل صراعاتهم التي يخوضونها بشكل مباشر أو غير مباشر.. ولابد من ذكر أن مؤلف الكتاب حاصل على جائزة نوبل للاقتصاد عام 2005، ورغم أنه أستاذ جامعي، إلا أنه كان مستشاراً للرئيس الأمريكي في شؤون السياسة الخارجية.
بالرغم من عدم وجود الأشكال والرسوم.. تبقى الأمثلة التي ساقها المؤلف.. أكثر من رائعة.. وتدل على تفكير مصيب.. رغم أنني مازلت أكره تسخير العلم للحروب، وأعتقد أنه سيأتي يوم نسخر كل علومنا للخير والسلام.. حتى ذلك الوقت.. ينبغي لنا معرفة كيف يفكر الآخر
July 5, 2018
This was a wonderful though challenging read. Schelling tries to keep the tone conversational, but in doing so loses the precision necessary to keep track of all the moving parts in his arguments. I found myself flipping back and forth between pages and spending substantial time on some of his arguments. Nonetheless, I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in game theory or international relations. I tracked this book down because it was referenced in basically every book I’ve read on the Cold War.
I’ve seen some people criticize the book as being dated; modern communications technology has supposedly rendered the conclusions of this book obsolete. Nonsense. That is a much too narrow reading. Further, much to my surprise, Schelling looks presciently forward in many ways. For instance, despite a big caveat about how he doubts the possibility of highly accurate strategic weapons, he analyzes the effect they would have on nuclear deterrence. Our modern, highly accurate, terrain following, GPS-enabled cruise missiles are just the kind of weapon that he thought impossible but analyzed anyways.
To my eye, Schelling makes the following points timeless points:
1.) Most real world situations are not zero-sum games. They are mixed-motive games that require bargaining between players. A successful bargain generally requires some form of cooperation, otherwise both players stand to lose more than necessary.
2.) In bargaining, weakness is often strength, irrationality can at times be the most rational approach, and worsening your own payoffs can allow you to win big. Why? Because these actions can make you immune to threats.
3.) The strategic principles relevant to successful play of a non-zero sum game cannot be deduced from the mathematical structure of the game. These principles rely on cultural and symbolic factors that exist outside the structure of the game and can only be arrived at empirically. Failing to take these symbolic factors into account will needlessly destroy value for both players.
If you’ve got the patience and aren’t deterred by reading payoff matrices, you should spend some time with this book.
I’ve seen some people criticize the book as being dated; modern communications technology has supposedly rendered the conclusions of this book obsolete. Nonsense. That is a much too narrow reading. Further, much to my surprise, Schelling looks presciently forward in many ways. For instance, despite a big caveat about how he doubts the possibility of highly accurate strategic weapons, he analyzes the effect they would have on nuclear deterrence. Our modern, highly accurate, terrain following, GPS-enabled cruise missiles are just the kind of weapon that he thought impossible but analyzed anyways.
To my eye, Schelling makes the following points timeless points:
1.) Most real world situations are not zero-sum games. They are mixed-motive games that require bargaining between players. A successful bargain generally requires some form of cooperation, otherwise both players stand to lose more than necessary.
2.) In bargaining, weakness is often strength, irrationality can at times be the most rational approach, and worsening your own payoffs can allow you to win big. Why? Because these actions can make you immune to threats.
3.) The strategic principles relevant to successful play of a non-zero sum game cannot be deduced from the mathematical structure of the game. These principles rely on cultural and symbolic factors that exist outside the structure of the game and can only be arrived at empirically. Failing to take these symbolic factors into account will needlessly destroy value for both players.
If you’ve got the patience and aren’t deterred by reading payoff matrices, you should spend some time with this book.
October 11, 2012
Why MAD is sane, weakness is strength and knowledge is a disadvantage. A classic.
Read
October 23, 2020The Strategy of Conflict
The book is split into four parts with the first being an accessible introduction to Schelling's main ideas concerning conflict and negotiation. The remaining three parts (which I only skimmed) appear to be a slightly more technical implementation of these ideas into a mathematical framework. Those not in the mood for the mathsy later parts should not be dissuaded from reading the first, as it is self contained and full of mind bending insights. (At only 80 pages it is also very efficient with respect to its mindblowingness.)
The first thing to emphasise is that the sort of conflict under consideration is very broad in scope. It is not just peace treaties and hostage negotiations treated here, but any situation in which two parties interests don't necessarily align. This includes: who gives way in traffic, salary negotiations, child rearing and more. The focus is not to present optimal strategies (if they should even exist) in each case but instead to point out recurring principles these situations all have in common and how best to then think about these. The book puts forward that all conflict should be viewed as a form of bargaining. I outline below some of the ideas I found particularly great.
1. Weakness is a strength
This begins the pattern of ideas that are wonderfully counterintuitive at first glance. It is best illustrated through a contrived example. Suppose you and another driver are driving towards each other along a straight road. Neither one of you wants to give way to the other and so the person who turns first loses. Note, that although neither of you want to lose, you both understand it would be much worse to collide and damage both your cars. In this situation, if you visibly throw your steering wheel out of the window, you give up your power to make decisions in this conflict but in so doing ensure your victory as the other driver will understand that they must now turn to avoid collision.
Other examples are considered, like the power that comes from being able to send messages to someone without being able to receive messages back, or how hostage negotiators are empowered by their inability to give in to certain demands. The examples are all fun and it is not hard to figure out the moral of all these stories.
2. The contradiction inherent in threats
Threats are a powerful tool in negotiations. One might threaten to quit if they do not get a raise, England might threaten war against any foreign nation that steps foot into Belgium without permission. In a number of cases the threat will be intended purely as a deterrent and it will not be in the interest of the threatening party to actually carry the threat out if their bluff is called. But if the other party understands that it would be irrational for the threat to be carried out, then why should they take the threat seriously? For instance, it is very much not in England's interest to join an economically devastating war in the event of Belgium's neutrality not being respected, and so this threat may not be taken seriously.
Thus, the problem becomes: how do you commit to carrying out an irrational threat? There are a number of ways of doing so: you can enter into a binding contract, or you can stake your reputation on it so that your ability to successfully make threats going forward hinges on commuting to carrying out the current threat.
3. It's difficult to be trustworthy
This one is amusingly counterintuitive. He claims that in America corporations have two rights. The right to sue and the right to be sued. This last one seems a bit strange to call a right but he points out that this what enable corporations to make commitments and have them taken seriously. If it were not possible to sue a corporation why would any entity enter into an agreement or contract with a corporation, for there would be no recourse if they reneged. Again, something that appears at first glance to be a disadvantage is actually incredibly powerful in the right context.
In general it is quite difficult to get people to take your commitments seriously (or even to get yourself to take them seriously and carry them out). He points out that in a situation where a kidnapper wants to let their victim go, both kidnapper and victim might be looking desperately for some way to take the victim's commitment that they will not go to the police seriously. (He proposes one resolution where the victim gives the kidnapper some material with which to blackmail the victim into not going to the police.)
4. Tacit bargaining
This one involves how two entities without the ability to communicate might coordinate their actions. This involves what he calls focal points (now called Schelling points) in the situation which should catch the attention of both parties. For instance if a couple become separated in a department store (and they don't have cell phones) they will generally be able to find each other faster than you would expect if they were to just search randomly for the other. For instance if there is an information kiosk the husband might think that the wife would look for him there and the wife might think that he would know that she would look for him there and so they both head there. As another example, consider a contest where you and someone else who you cannot communicate with, must name a sum of money. In the event that the sums you both named are identical you will both receive the amount and otherwise you will both receive nothing. What would you write down? Most people who answer this question go with one million a nice round number that has been experimentally verified to be a Schelling point in this arrangement.
He shows how Schelling points have a weird way of showing up in negotiations in which the parties can communicate, for instance it is often the case that round numbers are agreed upon in negotiations. This suggests that elements of tacit bargaining, like Schelling points arise in regular negotiations too.
***
There are many more ideas in the first part than I've outlined above. Hopefully some day I'll have the time to read the later parts where these concepts are analyzed more mathematically.
The book is split into four parts with the first being an accessible introduction to Schelling's main ideas concerning conflict and negotiation. The remaining three parts (which I only skimmed) appear to be a slightly more technical implementation of these ideas into a mathematical framework. Those not in the mood for the mathsy later parts should not be dissuaded from reading the first, as it is self contained and full of mind bending insights. (At only 80 pages it is also very efficient with respect to its mindblowingness.)
The first thing to emphasise is that the sort of conflict under consideration is very broad in scope. It is not just peace treaties and hostage negotiations treated here, but any situation in which two parties interests don't necessarily align. This includes: who gives way in traffic, salary negotiations, child rearing and more. The focus is not to present optimal strategies (if they should even exist) in each case but instead to point out recurring principles these situations all have in common and how best to then think about these. The book puts forward that all conflict should be viewed as a form of bargaining. I outline below some of the ideas I found particularly great.
1. Weakness is a strength
This begins the pattern of ideas that are wonderfully counterintuitive at first glance. It is best illustrated through a contrived example. Suppose you and another driver are driving towards each other along a straight road. Neither one of you wants to give way to the other and so the person who turns first loses. Note, that although neither of you want to lose, you both understand it would be much worse to collide and damage both your cars. In this situation, if you visibly throw your steering wheel out of the window, you give up your power to make decisions in this conflict but in so doing ensure your victory as the other driver will understand that they must now turn to avoid collision.
Other examples are considered, like the power that comes from being able to send messages to someone without being able to receive messages back, or how hostage negotiators are empowered by their inability to give in to certain demands. The examples are all fun and it is not hard to figure out the moral of all these stories.
2. The contradiction inherent in threats
Threats are a powerful tool in negotiations. One might threaten to quit if they do not get a raise, England might threaten war against any foreign nation that steps foot into Belgium without permission. In a number of cases the threat will be intended purely as a deterrent and it will not be in the interest of the threatening party to actually carry the threat out if their bluff is called. But if the other party understands that it would be irrational for the threat to be carried out, then why should they take the threat seriously? For instance, it is very much not in England's interest to join an economically devastating war in the event of Belgium's neutrality not being respected, and so this threat may not be taken seriously.
Thus, the problem becomes: how do you commit to carrying out an irrational threat? There are a number of ways of doing so: you can enter into a binding contract, or you can stake your reputation on it so that your ability to successfully make threats going forward hinges on commuting to carrying out the current threat.
3. It's difficult to be trustworthy
This one is amusingly counterintuitive. He claims that in America corporations have two rights. The right to sue and the right to be sued. This last one seems a bit strange to call a right but he points out that this what enable corporations to make commitments and have them taken seriously. If it were not possible to sue a corporation why would any entity enter into an agreement or contract with a corporation, for there would be no recourse if they reneged. Again, something that appears at first glance to be a disadvantage is actually incredibly powerful in the right context.
In general it is quite difficult to get people to take your commitments seriously (or even to get yourself to take them seriously and carry them out). He points out that in a situation where a kidnapper wants to let their victim go, both kidnapper and victim might be looking desperately for some way to take the victim's commitment that they will not go to the police seriously. (He proposes one resolution where the victim gives the kidnapper some material with which to blackmail the victim into not going to the police.)
4. Tacit bargaining
This one involves how two entities without the ability to communicate might coordinate their actions. This involves what he calls focal points (now called Schelling points) in the situation which should catch the attention of both parties. For instance if a couple become separated in a department store (and they don't have cell phones) they will generally be able to find each other faster than you would expect if they were to just search randomly for the other. For instance if there is an information kiosk the husband might think that the wife would look for him there and the wife might think that he would know that she would look for him there and so they both head there. As another example, consider a contest where you and someone else who you cannot communicate with, must name a sum of money. In the event that the sums you both named are identical you will both receive the amount and otherwise you will both receive nothing. What would you write down? Most people who answer this question go with one million a nice round number that has been experimentally verified to be a Schelling point in this arrangement.
He shows how Schelling points have a weird way of showing up in negotiations in which the parties can communicate, for instance it is often the case that round numbers are agreed upon in negotiations. This suggests that elements of tacit bargaining, like Schelling points arise in regular negotiations too.
***
There are many more ideas in the first part than I've outlined above. Hopefully some day I'll have the time to read the later parts where these concepts are analyzed more mathematically.
August 6, 2018
I really wanted to like this book, and after receiving the recommendation to read it and looking up the subject matter, I was very enthusiastic to have a go at it. Game theory, strategy and international relations are all extremely interesting to me, so it was massively disappointing when I found it difficult to finish even the first couple of chapters. This may have been due to the format used; I chose it as one of my more recent audiobooks, and other reviewers have stated this is not a good audio "read." However, I believe my difficulty reading it came from a combination of the presentation of the book and the seeming obviousness of its statements.
Regarding the presentation, the book seems to take what are fairly simple ideas and try to present them in a formal academic setting. This results in a simple statement, such as "sometimes its better to have fewer options," turning into page after page of the tiniest variations on multiple examples in an attempt to create an academic framework and common language. The establishment of this unambiguous framework is extremely tiresome and at multiple points my urge was of the, "get on with it!" persuasion.
Second, and without trying to inflate my own esteem, I found that most of the points discussed were quite obvious. As I understand it, this book was quite revolutionary when published, but it is possible that due to MAD and improvements to modern game theory, there just wasn't a whole lot of new stuff for me to digest, at least from the few parts I did read.
The combination of these two points, and perhaps the audiobook issue, prevented me from even being able to finish the book, much less find any enjoyment in it. The book reminds me of old academic papers on now obsolete systems: I wouldn't recommend anyone read it unless doing so is deliberately to provide more context for another endeavor.
Regarding the presentation, the book seems to take what are fairly simple ideas and try to present them in a formal academic setting. This results in a simple statement, such as "sometimes its better to have fewer options," turning into page after page of the tiniest variations on multiple examples in an attempt to create an academic framework and common language. The establishment of this unambiguous framework is extremely tiresome and at multiple points my urge was of the, "get on with it!" persuasion.
Second, and without trying to inflate my own esteem, I found that most of the points discussed were quite obvious. As I understand it, this book was quite revolutionary when published, but it is possible that due to MAD and improvements to modern game theory, there just wasn't a whole lot of new stuff for me to digest, at least from the few parts I did read.
The combination of these two points, and perhaps the audiobook issue, prevented me from even being able to finish the book, much less find any enjoyment in it. The book reminds me of old academic papers on now obsolete systems: I wouldn't recommend anyone read it unless doing so is deliberately to provide more context for another endeavor.
October 3, 2008
A theoretical book about the nature of conflict.
The big point was that in conflict the best option is to demonstrate to the enemy that you are physically unable to deviate from your destructive course and thus his only option is to get the fuck out of your way.
The beginning and the end were really good but the parts in the middle about game theory and the numbers shit sucked.
I also like the implicit negotiation stuff.
Quotes:
"The essence of these tactics is some voluntary but irreversible sacrifice of freedom of choice. They rest on the paradox that the power to constrain an adversary may depend on the power to bind oneself; that, in bargaining, weakness is often strength, freedom may be freedom to capitulate, and to burn bridges behind one may suffice to undo an opponent."
"This example demonstrates that if the buyer can accept an irrevocable commitment, in a way that is unambiguously visible ot the seller, he can squeeze the range of indeterminacy down to the point most favorable to him."
"If we then ask what it is that can bring their expectations into convergence and bring the negotiation to a close, we might propose that it is the intrinsic magnetism of particular outcomes, especially those that enjoy prominence, uniqueness, simplicity, precedent, or some rationale that makes them qualitatively differentiable from the continuum of possible alternatives."
The big point was that in conflict the best option is to demonstrate to the enemy that you are physically unable to deviate from your destructive course and thus his only option is to get the fuck out of your way.
The beginning and the end were really good but the parts in the middle about game theory and the numbers shit sucked.
I also like the implicit negotiation stuff.
Quotes:
"The essence of these tactics is some voluntary but irreversible sacrifice of freedom of choice. They rest on the paradox that the power to constrain an adversary may depend on the power to bind oneself; that, in bargaining, weakness is often strength, freedom may be freedom to capitulate, and to burn bridges behind one may suffice to undo an opponent."
"This example demonstrates that if the buyer can accept an irrevocable commitment, in a way that is unambiguously visible ot the seller, he can squeeze the range of indeterminacy down to the point most favorable to him."
"If we then ask what it is that can bring their expectations into convergence and bring the negotiation to a close, we might propose that it is the intrinsic magnetism of particular outcomes, especially those that enjoy prominence, uniqueness, simplicity, precedent, or some rationale that makes them qualitatively differentiable from the continuum of possible alternatives."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 26, 2009
If at first this reads like a pop-econ book about counter-intuitive explanations for human transactions, do not stop there. Keep thinking about it.
Schelling's description of variable sum games and bargaining seemed overbearing while I was reading it, but as soon as I finished the book I realized having the analysis systematically laid out was very helpful. In particular, I wish I had read this before studying Contracts. Generally, this book gives me a new perspective for explaining the most difficult to explain agreements people come to.
This was written in the context of the cold war, but the author explicitly broadens the analysis to apply to other contexts, such as business. To go a step beyond the Godfather, your "friends" and "enemies" are counter-parties in bargaining games who receive different labels for strategic reasons.
One chapter got into math that I didn't bother engaging with. Hopefully I'll go back to it. The rest was fine.
Schelling's description of variable sum games and bargaining seemed overbearing while I was reading it, but as soon as I finished the book I realized having the analysis systematically laid out was very helpful. In particular, I wish I had read this before studying Contracts. Generally, this book gives me a new perspective for explaining the most difficult to explain agreements people come to.
This was written in the context of the cold war, but the author explicitly broadens the analysis to apply to other contexts, such as business. To go a step beyond the Godfather, your "friends" and "enemies" are counter-parties in bargaining games who receive different labels for strategic reasons.
One chapter got into math that I didn't bother engaging with. Hopefully I'll go back to it. The rest was fine.
Read
June 30, 2014For a book this old, written by a founder in the field, and fundamental to a range of fields people have put a lot of effort into understanding (nuclear deterrence for example) this book had a lot of surprises. It used game theory to discuss a variety of strategy related issues, including how the fear of surprise attack influences the behavior of two interlocutors. It also had some interesting insights into regular warfare too. War is rarely a completely competitive endeavor, and often requires some mutual understanding between two opponents who don't want to push things to mutual annihilation. This cooperation can manifest itself into tacit or written rules of war that both parties adhere to because it is in their best interests to limit themselves.
Want to read
June 6, 2021“One constrains the partner’s choice by constraining one’s own behavior,” Schelling had written in The Strategy of Conflict. “The object is to set up for one’s self and communicate persuasively to the other play a mode of behavior (including conditional responses to the other’s behavior) that leaves the other a simple maximization problem whose solution for him is the optimum for one’s self, and to destroy the other’s ability to do the same.”
Excerpt From: Alexander D. “Significant Digits” -> HPMOR
More from: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tJQsx...
Excerpt From: Alexander D. “Significant Digits” -> HPMOR
More from: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tJQsx...
May 17, 2012
النسخة العربية سيئة للغاية فى طريقة ترجمتها وعرض الامثلة ..ووجد صعوبة بالغة فى فهم كثير من التفاصيل بسبب طريقة الترجمة السيئة..انصح بالنسخة الانجليزية الاصلية
December 5, 2018
A fairly good book on strategy, but no earth shattering insights.
March 4, 2022
This book is a classic of game theory and strategy. It starts out with a discussion of familiar game theoretic negotiation concepts - anchoring (where people gravitate to a position based on suggestion or common knowlege or norms), burning your bridges (and other forms of irrevocable commitment that is demonstrated convincingly to the opponent), strapping the dynamite to your chest (and other ways of gain by threatening massive harm), etc. Then the book really got interesting for me when Mr. Shelling started talking about the way that communication affects strategic decisions and how communcation can happen tacitly by messaging that is embedded in the players' moves. I particularly liked the analysis of how sometimes express communication can lead to the same result as when all communication is tacit. I also liked the discussion of how limited commitments and threats or probabilitistic commitments to extreme acts that may or may not be carried out can work or not work in contrast to full commitments or absolute threats in the same situations. The discussion in the end of war scenarios and nuclear strategy was a little depressing in light of current developments in the Ukraine, and unfortunately it didn't give me any brilliant ideas to send to Mr. Biden to help him resolve the crisis.
I have recently read several books that discuss the evolution of language and how natural selection could have worked to cause humans to move from simple grunts, gestures and warning cries to a full vocabulary and syntax. I had the thought in reading this book that the role of communication in strategic decision making might shed some light on this problem. If an ability of players to communicate can cause them more frequently to gravitate to mutually beneficial outcomes in conflict situations, wouldn't that confer a Darwinian benefit to the people who could communicate better? Maybe. In some ways its a better theory than the idea that we could coordinate hunting big animals better when we could talk to each other.
I have recently read several books that discuss the evolution of language and how natural selection could have worked to cause humans to move from simple grunts, gestures and warning cries to a full vocabulary and syntax. I had the thought in reading this book that the role of communication in strategic decision making might shed some light on this problem. If an ability of players to communicate can cause them more frequently to gravitate to mutually beneficial outcomes in conflict situations, wouldn't that confer a Darwinian benefit to the people who could communicate better? Maybe. In some ways its a better theory than the idea that we could coordinate hunting big animals better when we could talk to each other.
March 28, 2022
Fascinating book and relevant due to Russia’s aggressions in Ukraine.
Note: Recommend print/ebook formats over audio for this title. There are sections of the book comparing multiple factors that subsequently refer to each factor by a number (not name). Hard to follow that on audio.
Note: Recommend print/ebook formats over audio for this title. There are sections of the book comparing multiple factors that subsequently refer to each factor by a number (not name). Hard to follow that on audio.
December 7, 2019
A more in length review will be up soon. I really liked this book and I thought it was a great read.
October 18, 2013
[Disclaimer: This is a snapshot of my thoughts on this book after just reading it. This is not meant to serve as a summary of main/supporting points or a critique – only as some words on how I engaged with this book for the purposes of building a theoretical framework on strategy.]
-- Assigned reading for School of Advanced Air & Space Studies, chapters 1-3 & 8 only --
This book by Schelling carries the idea of compellence forward into the concept of manipulating the adversary’s perception, decisions, and behavior. “Correct” behavior in conflict is relative – it is based on your objectives, your margin of acceptable outcomes, and your margin of acceptable risk while working toward those outcomes. The majority of Schelling’s theory is based on two players, each with different sets of objectives.
If the goal is to “win” in conflict, then “winning” is “gaining relative to one’s own value system” (4). The strategy in getting there is less about the application of force, but the “exploitation of potential force” (5) where there is a winner and loser, but both may also end up with outcomes better or worse than they otherwise would have without the use of such a strategy.
I see Schelling’s theory as primarily a manipulation of perception for the purposes of bargaining -- the core of Information Operations, but almost summarily ignored in modern (American) warfare. This kind of thinking is often left to special operations and politicians, when it very well could and should be used at all levels of warfare in all domains. Schelling brings up multiple options on how to shape adversary perception to make it seem as though only one option exists for you, that multiple options exist for them, or that the options that exist for you have a margin of risk that must be acceptable to the adversary. While he does not call it “cognitive bias” or dissonance, his ideas are similar to Jervis and Khaneman in that he recognizes that the mind of the state (to anthropomorphize) has its own value system, its own biases, and its appreciation for what is presented to them. By manipulating what messages the adversary receives, you can affect his decision making process in order to reach your objectives. Nevertheless, in this state-to-state bargaining process, the risk of war is real.
Schelling devotes a portion of his third chapter to the idea of using limited war as a tool to manage risk. By increasing and decreasing risk, you can strengthen the perception of commitment, as well as demonstrate a willingness to bring both parties to ruin as a result of failure. There is even the possibility of a unilateral agreement where one party can make a decision that the other party tacitly accepts – even though they may voice disagreement, if they do nothing to affect the decision, they will have at least acknowledged the existence of the decision.
This is a profound look at using perception as a weapon in achieving desired outcomes. At this point in my education, I believe this is how force should be used as its primary intent. Unfortunately, in order to demonstrate that the threat of force is real, it must be used on occasion, and with force achieving its desired intent. I’m not sure this has happened for some time – thereby weakening the value of the military instrument of power.
-- Assigned reading for School of Advanced Air & Space Studies, chapters 1-3 & 8 only --
This book by Schelling carries the idea of compellence forward into the concept of manipulating the adversary’s perception, decisions, and behavior. “Correct” behavior in conflict is relative – it is based on your objectives, your margin of acceptable outcomes, and your margin of acceptable risk while working toward those outcomes. The majority of Schelling’s theory is based on two players, each with different sets of objectives.
If the goal is to “win” in conflict, then “winning” is “gaining relative to one’s own value system” (4). The strategy in getting there is less about the application of force, but the “exploitation of potential force” (5) where there is a winner and loser, but both may also end up with outcomes better or worse than they otherwise would have without the use of such a strategy.
I see Schelling’s theory as primarily a manipulation of perception for the purposes of bargaining -- the core of Information Operations, but almost summarily ignored in modern (American) warfare. This kind of thinking is often left to special operations and politicians, when it very well could and should be used at all levels of warfare in all domains. Schelling brings up multiple options on how to shape adversary perception to make it seem as though only one option exists for you, that multiple options exist for them, or that the options that exist for you have a margin of risk that must be acceptable to the adversary. While he does not call it “cognitive bias” or dissonance, his ideas are similar to Jervis and Khaneman in that he recognizes that the mind of the state (to anthropomorphize) has its own value system, its own biases, and its appreciation for what is presented to them. By manipulating what messages the adversary receives, you can affect his decision making process in order to reach your objectives. Nevertheless, in this state-to-state bargaining process, the risk of war is real.
Schelling devotes a portion of his third chapter to the idea of using limited war as a tool to manage risk. By increasing and decreasing risk, you can strengthen the perception of commitment, as well as demonstrate a willingness to bring both parties to ruin as a result of failure. There is even the possibility of a unilateral agreement where one party can make a decision that the other party tacitly accepts – even though they may voice disagreement, if they do nothing to affect the decision, they will have at least acknowledged the existence of the decision.
This is a profound look at using perception as a weapon in achieving desired outcomes. At this point in my education, I believe this is how force should be used as its primary intent. Unfortunately, in order to demonstrate that the threat of force is real, it must be used on occasion, and with force achieving its desired intent. I’m not sure this has happened for some time – thereby weakening the value of the military instrument of power.
July 22, 2019
I learned about this book from a Naval Ravikant Podcast https://youtu.be/BtW-Ds-artA where he talked about the Schelling Point and how we cooperate without communicating. The book is a good primer to understand more about geopolitical conflicts, wars, the dynamics between leaders and using game theory to determine potential outcomes. The book was interesting and had a lot of useful information. It was a little bit on the dry side and had some confusing scenarios/formulas in it. This isn’t for everyone, but if you want to understand more about the motivations and desires of people when negotiating, or in a conflict situation, it contains some valuable insights worth learning about.
August 6, 2022
The first half is insightful and interesting, but the second half turns into a bit of a slog.
November 10, 2023
This book, at first, was like a cool class you take from a boring professor that just kinda kills the subject for you. The first 60% was related to game theory and subsequent bargaining related to it and written in the driest form possible. Pages and pages of prisoners dilemmas payoff matrices with ROTE descriptions of every minute variable. As an academic subject to study I'm sure it may have paid off to dig deeper, break out my pencil and paper, and write out to solve each and every mathematical equation that was presented to get a better understanding of the math breakdowns. I ain't wanna do that, so lots of this half was a speed-read for me. I was curious why the author didn't provide more examples, as without real world examples a lot of relatability was lost. Sometimes in a single sentence, however, a dozen variations of the mechanics of negotiation would be posed and while examples would enrich the content for the reader, it also would have doubled the length of the book since such a comprehensive analysis is given for every subject. To be fair the author does mention that war as a broad topic has no high level university counterpart in academics form, and part of his intention was to create something along the lines of that. Hence some overly verbose and academic type of lengthy descriptions that puts a casual reader to sleep.
Past the dry game theory and still skimming the deep dive analysis chapters of threats, promises, explicit vs implicit bargaining, common v divergent interests, delegation, mediation - things did finally get interesting once the root subject of war got brought up. The clear explanations of various stages of local, limited, and general war were fascinating. The previous buildup of game theory and laying out the differences between zero sum and mixed motive games began to paint a more understandable picture. The examples I was hoping for in previous chapters and not being provided with were beginning to get fleshed out. Essentially in a nuclear age, nobody wants all out war as it almost inevitably leads to mutual destruction and adverse consequences of the nuclear fallout in its wake. The most interesting concept that I took away from this book was regarding disarmament. It really doesn't matter which side of a battle strikes first, there is no advantage as the opposing side has obvious incentives to strike back with an equal or greater retaliatory force. If each side has massive capacity to retaliate in a nuclear fashion, and the numbers of those retaliatory bombs/missiles/forces are so great that they are resistant to being wiped out by a surprise first mover 'advantage' attack, then a stable balance can be reached, paradoxically, by increasing the limit of allowed nuclear weapons for each side. If every major world military power had thousands of nuclear warheads, it would be impossible to destroy a nations entire stockpile of nuclear by any first attack. Retaliation and mutual destruction would be assured, which is a negative sum game that no country wants to play. An arms race does not lead to an unstable global situation, rather it increases the mutual deterrence of creating a total war in the first place. There is not much advantage for anyone to strike first if you will set off a chain of events that decimates your population a day later than your enemies. 3 stars, 4 if written more for a casual reader instead of a university student expected to study and breakdown individual chapters in their own time. Not a fault of the author but not a style I'm as interested in.
Past the dry game theory and still skimming the deep dive analysis chapters of threats, promises, explicit vs implicit bargaining, common v divergent interests, delegation, mediation - things did finally get interesting once the root subject of war got brought up. The clear explanations of various stages of local, limited, and general war were fascinating. The previous buildup of game theory and laying out the differences between zero sum and mixed motive games began to paint a more understandable picture. The examples I was hoping for in previous chapters and not being provided with were beginning to get fleshed out. Essentially in a nuclear age, nobody wants all out war as it almost inevitably leads to mutual destruction and adverse consequences of the nuclear fallout in its wake. The most interesting concept that I took away from this book was regarding disarmament. It really doesn't matter which side of a battle strikes first, there is no advantage as the opposing side has obvious incentives to strike back with an equal or greater retaliatory force. If each side has massive capacity to retaliate in a nuclear fashion, and the numbers of those retaliatory bombs/missiles/forces are so great that they are resistant to being wiped out by a surprise first mover 'advantage' attack, then a stable balance can be reached, paradoxically, by increasing the limit of allowed nuclear weapons for each side. If every major world military power had thousands of nuclear warheads, it would be impossible to destroy a nations entire stockpile of nuclear by any first attack. Retaliation and mutual destruction would be assured, which is a negative sum game that no country wants to play. An arms race does not lead to an unstable global situation, rather it increases the mutual deterrence of creating a total war in the first place. There is not much advantage for anyone to strike first if you will set off a chain of events that decimates your population a day later than your enemies. 3 stars, 4 if written more for a casual reader instead of a university student expected to study and breakdown individual chapters in their own time. Not a fault of the author but not a style I'm as interested in.
February 9, 2019
Interesting not only as a historical artifact on an application of "game theoretic" reasoning, but also the foundations of US cold war strategic thinking. Much of the book uses game theory more as a general framework for reasoning, and less as an abstract construct. There are a few moments, about 1 hour of row/column table analysis of payoff matrices, none of which are made available in pdf or other formats, which extends into a conversation on dominating strategies, mostly incoherent because of the lack of the reference tables.
Still a lot of interesting content for historians of the cold war, Schelling makes connections to his thinking on the "balance of terror" with hostage situations, specifically the medieval practice nobles sending their families to the capital to be held by the king as a certificate for compliance. Schelling even hypothesizes that a major rotating exchange program between the USSR and the US could serve as a signal of US intent to not engage in first-strike, whose option Schelling felt was inherently destabilizing.
Everything you ever wanted to read on general nuclear strategy during the Cold War is outlined or touched upon in the book, from the justification of SACs 24-hour fleet rotation and the "clear skies treaty" to the cost/benefits of attempting a decapitation strike with respect to adversaries nuclear arsenals. Much of this logic could still be applied to US/Russian and US/China positioning with respect to strategic assets, though with the later, China has emphasized non-nuclear assets and tactics, which this material is less suitable to analyze, along with much of classical game theory, outside of the niche field of differential games.
I found the book to still be highly relevant, especially the commentary on negotiations at the national level, like the trade. For those who want to make some sense of the next few years of US/China trade talks might find this book a good start.
Schelling makes an interesting point at the beginning of the book, if two opponents could make the relative strength and costs manifest to each other, the conflict would not be needed, as its engagement is could be viewed as a failure to reckon those facts. In this way, Schelling has more affinity to Sun Tzu and Chinese views of strategy, which is that many times the best strategy will minimize physical conflict, whereas much of classical western thinking in this area contrives some maximalist strategy that emphasizes martial power to the exclusion of everything else.
One also gets a feel that Schelling was probably not a fan of Game Theory as it became or would become, as he spends a lot of time. Discussing the spiral of expectations convergence in adversarial games, the issue of "you thinking what I think you think is going to happen" is the primary catalyst of action. This diverged a bit from the utility perspective of modern game theory and reminded me of the reactive agent paradigm in AI and ABM, the later which Schelling would pioneer an application to the study of racial segregation in urban housing. An approach which was probably wrong, but still important from an academic perspective.
I enjoyed most minutes from this book. Covers a lot of relevant topics from negotiations, to the logic of limited war, nuclear war. Reading this book will make understanding standard US foreign policy thinking much easier. Highly recommended
Still a lot of interesting content for historians of the cold war, Schelling makes connections to his thinking on the "balance of terror" with hostage situations, specifically the medieval practice nobles sending their families to the capital to be held by the king as a certificate for compliance. Schelling even hypothesizes that a major rotating exchange program between the USSR and the US could serve as a signal of US intent to not engage in first-strike, whose option Schelling felt was inherently destabilizing.
Everything you ever wanted to read on general nuclear strategy during the Cold War is outlined or touched upon in the book, from the justification of SACs 24-hour fleet rotation and the "clear skies treaty" to the cost/benefits of attempting a decapitation strike with respect to adversaries nuclear arsenals. Much of this logic could still be applied to US/Russian and US/China positioning with respect to strategic assets, though with the later, China has emphasized non-nuclear assets and tactics, which this material is less suitable to analyze, along with much of classical game theory, outside of the niche field of differential games.
I found the book to still be highly relevant, especially the commentary on negotiations at the national level, like the trade. For those who want to make some sense of the next few years of US/China trade talks might find this book a good start.
Schelling makes an interesting point at the beginning of the book, if two opponents could make the relative strength and costs manifest to each other, the conflict would not be needed, as its engagement is could be viewed as a failure to reckon those facts. In this way, Schelling has more affinity to Sun Tzu and Chinese views of strategy, which is that many times the best strategy will minimize physical conflict, whereas much of classical western thinking in this area contrives some maximalist strategy that emphasizes martial power to the exclusion of everything else.
One also gets a feel that Schelling was probably not a fan of Game Theory as it became or would become, as he spends a lot of time. Discussing the spiral of expectations convergence in adversarial games, the issue of "you thinking what I think you think is going to happen" is the primary catalyst of action. This diverged a bit from the utility perspective of modern game theory and reminded me of the reactive agent paradigm in AI and ABM, the later which Schelling would pioneer an application to the study of racial segregation in urban housing. An approach which was probably wrong, but still important from an academic perspective.
I enjoyed most minutes from this book. Covers a lot of relevant topics from negotiations, to the logic of limited war, nuclear war. Reading this book will make understanding standard US foreign policy thinking much easier. Highly recommended
September 27, 2023
In real-world negotiations and conflicts, the effect of your decisions often depends on what decisions other people make. And the effect of their decisions depends on your decisions. So to know what to do, you need to know what they’re going to do, which depends on what they think you’re going to do, which depends on what they think you think they’re going to do, etc. This book draws out the often-counterintuitive implications of such “interdependent decision” situations. Two main points stood out to me most.
Limitations can be advantages. Examples:
- A person who cannot break their promises (e.g. because a third party would punish them severely) can coordinate with others in mutually advantageous ways which might otherwise be impossible due to a lack of trust.
- A democratically elected leader may be less vulnerable than a dictator to coercion if that leader can credibly claim they would be removed from power if they tried to comply.[1]
- Lacking even the capacity to perform a surprise attack on your enemy can in some scenarios help prevent a mutually disadvantageous war.[2]
- A person who cannot be contacted cannot be coerced via threats.
Non-arbitrariness often overrules fairness. For example, if two people are each tasked with drawing a line on a map to divide territory between themselves—without communicating—and with the goal of both drawing the same line, they will likely draw the line along some unique feature (such as a lone river) even if this gives much more territory to one player than the other.[4] A line through the middle of the map would be fairer, but there are many lines through the middle and no way for the players to agree on one. Schelling argues that even in real-world negotiations where the participants do communicate, such saliency considerations often have substantial influence, and not necessarily due to any irrationality. Empirical knowledge of human psychology—of what features people find salient, what solutions people perceive to be natural—would be necessary for selecting optimal behavior even if everyone involved were known to be perfectly rational.
[1] See Thomas C. Schelling, The strategy of conflict: with a new preface (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1980), 28.
[2] Ibid., 215.
[3] Ibid., 37.
[4] Ibid., 62.
(crosspost)
Limitations can be advantages. Examples:
- A person who cannot break their promises (e.g. because a third party would punish them severely) can coordinate with others in mutually advantageous ways which might otherwise be impossible due to a lack of trust.
- A democratically elected leader may be less vulnerable than a dictator to coercion if that leader can credibly claim they would be removed from power if they tried to comply.[1]
- Lacking even the capacity to perform a surprise attack on your enemy can in some scenarios help prevent a mutually disadvantageous war.[2]
- A person who cannot be contacted cannot be coerced via threats.
In bargaining, the commitment is a device to leave the last clear chance to decide the outcome with the other party, in a manner that he fully appreciates; it is to relinquish further initiative, having rigged the incentives so that the other party must choose in one’s favor.[3]
Non-arbitrariness often overrules fairness. For example, if two people are each tasked with drawing a line on a map to divide territory between themselves—without communicating—and with the goal of both drawing the same line, they will likely draw the line along some unique feature (such as a lone river) even if this gives much more territory to one player than the other.[4] A line through the middle of the map would be fairer, but there are many lines through the middle and no way for the players to agree on one. Schelling argues that even in real-world negotiations where the participants do communicate, such saliency considerations often have substantial influence, and not necessarily due to any irrationality. Empirical knowledge of human psychology—of what features people find salient, what solutions people perceive to be natural—would be necessary for selecting optimal behavior even if everyone involved were known to be perfectly rational.
[1] See Thomas C. Schelling, The strategy of conflict: with a new preface (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1980), 28.
[2] Ibid., 215.
[3] Ibid., 37.
[4] Ibid., 62.
(crosspost)
April 18, 2021
an overwhelming collection of interesting ideas related to bargaining, coordination, and communication.
i imagine schelling running his white-gloved hands over laboratory-condition game theory setups and finding traces of communication between players where it was said to be impossible. while inspecting his fingertip, he clicks his tongue: "ah you say they chose to split the cash reward evenly because it's the rational solution between identical players, but in truth reason alone could not provide a unique rational solution: they tacitly coordinated on a focal value after considering their shared psychological makeup, not unlike a wife knowing that if she got separated she could find her husband at the mall's lost and found booth."
as in his book micromotives and macrobehaviors, the theories are built up from dozens of richly particular examples: moriarty and holmes getting off a train at the same station by reference to its name resonating with their shared history, paratroopers lost in the woods and finding each other at the top of the highest hill, soldiers retreating to a river because it communicates to the enemy they cannot be pushed arbitrarily far back, a man coming upon an armed burglar in the night and inducing shootout by himself carrying a gun, the function of a plate glass window of jewelry store being to coordinate a commotion if broken, americans abstaining from the use a nuclear weapon in a small war to maintain a taboo, a customer accepted a salesman's final offer to avoid a scene, princesses living in adversaries castles to assure peace, the secret ballot as protector of democracy, cutting your phone line to make yourself invulnerable to blackmail, non-enforcement of liquor label copyrights advantaging larger gangs during prohibition--this isn't a tenth of it!
i imagine schelling running his white-gloved hands over laboratory-condition game theory setups and finding traces of communication between players where it was said to be impossible. while inspecting his fingertip, he clicks his tongue: "ah you say they chose to split the cash reward evenly because it's the rational solution between identical players, but in truth reason alone could not provide a unique rational solution: they tacitly coordinated on a focal value after considering their shared psychological makeup, not unlike a wife knowing that if she got separated she could find her husband at the mall's lost and found booth."
as in his book micromotives and macrobehaviors, the theories are built up from dozens of richly particular examples: moriarty and holmes getting off a train at the same station by reference to its name resonating with their shared history, paratroopers lost in the woods and finding each other at the top of the highest hill, soldiers retreating to a river because it communicates to the enemy they cannot be pushed arbitrarily far back, a man coming upon an armed burglar in the night and inducing shootout by himself carrying a gun, the function of a plate glass window of jewelry store being to coordinate a commotion if broken, americans abstaining from the use a nuclear weapon in a small war to maintain a taboo, a customer accepted a salesman's final offer to avoid a scene, princesses living in adversaries castles to assure peace, the secret ballot as protector of democracy, cutting your phone line to make yourself invulnerable to blackmail, non-enforcement of liquor label copyrights advantaging larger gangs during prohibition--this isn't a tenth of it!
August 15, 2020
I wanted so much more from this book than I got.
The book does contain some interesting ideas: it develops a good taxonomy of threat/promise/commitment &c and discusses how they differ and what they offer. There is interesting stuff about surprise attacks. A lot of this is useful to think about in strategy situations.
However, the book is structured as a series of essays and it feels *a lot* like they just got a bunch of existing essays and sequenced them one after the other - there isn't a clear sense of building, and there is a lot of redundant writing. In effect the book works OK at the micro level of each chapter but works poorly at the macro level of the whole book.
Also, a lot of the stuff is about cold war politics. This was obviously very topical at a time, and it's still a valid situation to study because of what it reveals about game theory or incentive structures. However, it feels pretty dated and no effort is made to make it more relevant or accessible for a modern audience.
Probably the most useful/interesting stuff is how "weakness can be strength" in negotiating - eg an inability to heed an offer from an opponent can actually be useful. However this gets discussed fairly early on and after that the book goes downhill.
The book does contain some interesting ideas: it develops a good taxonomy of threat/promise/commitment &c and discusses how they differ and what they offer. There is interesting stuff about surprise attacks. A lot of this is useful to think about in strategy situations.
However, the book is structured as a series of essays and it feels *a lot* like they just got a bunch of existing essays and sequenced them one after the other - there isn't a clear sense of building, and there is a lot of redundant writing. In effect the book works OK at the micro level of each chapter but works poorly at the macro level of the whole book.
Also, a lot of the stuff is about cold war politics. This was obviously very topical at a time, and it's still a valid situation to study because of what it reveals about game theory or incentive structures. However, it feels pretty dated and no effort is made to make it more relevant or accessible for a modern audience.
Probably the most useful/interesting stuff is how "weakness can be strength" in negotiating - eg an inability to heed an offer from an opponent can actually be useful. However this gets discussed fairly early on and after that the book goes downhill.
May 22, 2020
This was a very interesting look at both the foundations of game theory (and how Schelling thinks game theory should work) and the application of this to real problems. Schelling focused on how coordination problems very often involve sequential moves from each party in order for either party to get an advantage or for the game to resolve, and that these moves often rely upon non-mathematical or standardly game-theoretic information. (For instance, conspicuous marks on a piece of paper, or the ordering of options, or the placement of numbers, or real-world landmarks, etc. may direct the attention of each game participant, such that each participant thinks that that signal will be conspicuous to others, and that the others will think the same, such that they can all coordinate on that signal.) This wasn't something I'd really read or thought about before, but I think it was definitely worth the read.
October 25, 2018
A complex and an extremely hard to follow book, the Strategy of Conflict is about the implications, nuances and tactics of non zero sum games. The paragraphs are all about theory and little practice; the illustrations are abstract and lack annotations; thus my point about a hard to digest book. This obviously was written for subject matter experts, and since I was reading this as introduction to the topic, my understanding of the corpus came really short. I'd recommend other sources as stepping stone about the theory of conflict and game theory strategies; use this book as the last reference guide. There are valuable recommendations and ideas on how to formulate conflict strategies and take advantage during these; if looking for that only, read chapter two and it should be enough.
July 26, 2022
The Strategy of Conflict by Thomas Schelling is a classic of old-school, nuclear-age strategy among nations. Schelling has a lot of groundwork to do, so he builds a framework that is far more relevant to the mundane affairs of the day to day, before he moves by inches into something more concretely related to the inter-state strategy. The book is foundational, but it is not without its shortcomings and its slog. More modern works are more user friendly, even if Schelling's own concepts were revolutionary in their own way, alongside that of Kahn, Wohlstetter, Brodie, etc. Well worth a read, but the act of reading might be a bit more tortured than necessary.
September 16, 2021
Game theory meets international relations. Schelling's theories are gutsy and counterintuitive--weakness is strength, fewer options is more power, better to show your hand than bluff--and he can make a good case. And while I wouldn't trust Schelling to call the shots for American foreign policy, which he kind of did in the 1950s, it's an interesting study to watch how many leaders and marketing firms and everyday individuals make moves akin to those upheld by Schelling's take on game theory. Does this intrigue or terrify me? In words Schelling would appreciate: both, either, and/or neither.
July 30, 2022
Application of game theory to the strategy of international conflict.
Very dry, not really audio-book friendly. And also, unfortunately - kinda outdated (as the book was published more than 30 years ago and well, everything progresses.
I'm not saying the model proposed is wrong - in fact, there are plenty of good points, and many of them are really well explained. But instead of a purely theoretical model (and its dryness), I'd rather read about a good mental model illustrated with actual examples (that prove/confirm the observations).
Very dry, not really audio-book friendly. And also, unfortunately - kinda outdated (as the book was published more than 30 years ago and well, everything progresses.
I'm not saying the model proposed is wrong - in fact, there are plenty of good points, and many of them are really well explained. But instead of a purely theoretical model (and its dryness), I'd rather read about a good mental model illustrated with actual examples (that prove/confirm the observations).
April 24, 2020
Collection of essays about game theory, self-defense and first strike capabilities.
Why I started this book: Last audio in my Professional Titles pile. I was eager to cross it off the list.
Why I finished it: Ugh, game theory. I hate it. I hate the conclusions, the assumptions and the self-congratulatory conclusions. Plus first published in 1960 and revised in 1980... well its a tad dated.
Why I started this book: Last audio in my Professional Titles pile. I was eager to cross it off the list.
Why I finished it: Ugh, game theory. I hate it. I hate the conclusions, the assumptions and the self-congratulatory conclusions. Plus first published in 1960 and revised in 1980... well its a tad dated.
April 13, 2023
I got the feeling that the team negotiating the Brexit deal for the UK had read this book and tried to implement it but ended up losing on all the points.
Interesting throughout apart from maybe the section on who would shoot first out of a homeowner and a burglar.
I learned the words 'Quemoy' and 'boxcars'.
Interesting throughout apart from maybe the section on who would shoot first out of a homeowner and a burglar.
I learned the words 'Quemoy' and 'boxcars'.
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