“ There’s also a pretty basic game theory element to this. War seems like an environment wherein the opposing forces will not cooperate under any circumstances, but in reality is akin to an iterated prisoners’ dilemma. There are rules to war…Defecting from this invites retaliation…Successful players are going to be able to respond to defection gracefully and intelligently- with enough retaliation to ensure that defection is an undesirable strategy, but with enough moderation that it does not, itself, invite retaliation.
September 4, 2009
