Among his many
accomplishments, Nobel economics laureate showed how an atomic war would result
in all sides being losers
If you are a driver playing a
game of chicken, how do you improve your chances of winning? Thomas Schelling,
an American game theory pioneer and Nobel economics laureate who died last week
aged 95, had a counter-intuitive suggestion. Rip out the steering wheel and
brandish it to make sure your opponent knows you no longer have control of the
car. This is an example of his proof using the mathematical theory that your
negotiating position may strengthen if you limit your options rather than seek
more.
Game
theory, which studies rational expectations and decision-making, has influenced
most social sciences, especially economics; Schelling pioneered some of its key
concepts. Many mainland scholars have turned to it to analyse the increasing
complexities China faces in international politics. With its territorial claims
in the South China Sea, for example, Beijing’s taking small steps over a long
period rather than a single, swift, action aims to avoid provoking an outright
confrontation and catch rivals off-guard. Schelling playfully called such
tactics “salami slicing”. He also made influential studies of other branches of
economics such as urban and population planning. But he would become famous for
his game-theoretic study of thermonuclear warfare. Schelling was among an elite
group of strategists in 1950s and 1960s America who tried to think the
unthinkable. Mutually assured destruction (MAD), which ruled out victory as a
possible goal in a nuclear confrontation, was something this group came up
with. Another influential insight of Schelling was that nuclear deterrents only
worked if both sides knew each other’s real capabilities.
For their
study and its influence on the US nuclear posture, they were fiercely denounced
by liberal critics. But British filmmaker Stanley Kubrick read Schelling and
was intrigued; he made him a consultant on his classic Dr Strangelove, a
dark but comical portrayal of a MAD scenario gone wrong. In the end, thinkers
like Schelling might have done more to avert a nuclear catastrophe than their
disarmament critics. And in his other studies, he continues to illuminate
contemporary affairs.
SCMP
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