Mar 6, 2014

Back to basics [Strategy of Conflict]

From a 2006 article by Roger Myerson titled "Learning From Schelling's Strategy of Conflict":  
. . . [T]he same forces that help people to achieve consistent coordinated expectations in a successful society can become forces for inconsistency of expectations across societies in international relations. Indeed, in international conflicts throughout history, people on each side have regularly failed to understand the other side's perception of justice in their conflict. (p. 13).
. . . [I]nstitution's rules are rationally enforceable iff the utility maximizing best responses for any player are always legal strategies whenever the other players are all expected to use legal strategies (possibly with randomization). (p. 15).
. . . And we still need to learn Schelling's basic lesson that, in a realistic analysis of international conflict, we should consider our adversaries as rational intelligent decision-makers, whose interests are different from ours, but with whom we share a fundamental problem of coordinating mutual strategic expectations. (p- 23).
Actually the article is not basic at all, and it made me remember very useful concepts such as "focal points" in the context of international conflict.  

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