Cuban missile crisis game theory. Game theory and the Cuban missile crisis 2022-10-04
Cuban missile crisis game theory
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The Cuban Missile Crisis was a pivotal moment in history that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. At the heart of the crisis was a series of complex negotiations and decision-making processes that were influenced by game theory.
Game theory is a branch of economics that studies strategic decision-making in situations where the outcomes depend on the actions of multiple players. It is based on the idea that individuals will act in their own self-interest, and that the optimal outcome for any given situation can be determined through analysis and calculation.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, game theory played a key role in the decision-making process of both the United States and the Soviet Union. The two sides were locked in a Cold War standoff, and both were motivated to avoid a nuclear conflict. However, they also both wanted to protect their own interests and assert their dominance on the global stage.
On one side, the United States was faced with a difficult decision. If they took military action against the Soviet Union, they risked starting a nuclear war. If they did nothing, they would be seen as weak and potentially lose the Cold War. In order to protect their interests, they needed to find a way to negotiate with the Soviet Union without appearing weak or giving in to their demands.
The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was motivated to protect its own interests and establish itself as a global power. It had secretly installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, as a way to deter the United States from taking military action against it.
The two sides engaged in a series of negotiations and threats, trying to find a way to deescalate the crisis without losing face or compromising their interests. At the heart of these negotiations was a complex game of strategic decision-making, with each side trying to predict the other's moves and anticipate the consequences of their own actions.
Ultimately, the crisis was resolved through a series of secret negotiations and a public agreement in which the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba in exchange for a secret promise from the United States not to invade the island.
The Cuban Missile Crisis serves as a powerful example of the role that game theory can play in international relations and decision-making. It shows how strategic thinking and careful calculation can be used to avoid catastrophic outcomes and find mutually beneficial solutions to complex problems.
Game theory and the Cuban missile crisis
Firstly, should we find that it is the player who made the first move, who would choose to shift the state back to it's origin, the opponent would then have the option of moving or staying. That is, after working backwards from S. Air Force estimated it had a 90 percent chance of eliminating all the missiles , being the incentive for the Soviets to withdraw their missiles. The idea from this article came from a discussion with Professor Kaushik Basu at Cornell University. He was motivated by the Domino Theory, which suggested if one state fell to communism, the neighbouring countries would follow.
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[PDF] Game theory and the Cuban missile crisis
In the novel Rebel without a Cause, which was later made into a movie starring James Dean, the drivers were two teenagers, but instead of bearing down on each other they both raced toward a cliff, with the object being not to be the first driver to slam on his brakes and thereby "chicken out", while, at the same time, not plunging over the cliff. He felt that Kennedy did not have the expertise or power to resist any Soviet military build-up in Cuba. They could not afford to weaken their international image as the world police. USA would loss its prominent international fame. Castro's knowledge of this plan inflamed American-Cuban relations further. First, air strike A to clear all missiles or naval blockade B to prevent further shipment of missiles of Soviet into Cuba. As you hinted at earlier in the article, options are usually more wide ranging especially in a situations such as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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A Game
In the agreement US president Kennedy agreed to also eliminate US missiles from Turkey. Given the implications of Rule 5 ii , the game would still finish at this point and negotiations would not continue, and you can have no "Plan B", which is not usually the case. The plan centered around blockading a naval approach to Cuba, to ensure that no ships carrying firearms may come in to the country. As Robert Kennedy, a close adviser to his brother during the crisis, said, "If they did not remove those bases, we would remove them," which is consistent with Alternative, since the United States prefers 4,1 to 1,4 but not 1,1 to 2,4 in Chicken. He was replaced with the new leader Leonid Brezhnev. Rules l - 4 rules of play say nothing about what causes a game to end, only when: termination occurs when a "player whose turn it is to move next chooses not to switch its strategy" rule 4. This move may be his "second best" choice to the first move he could've made, thereby explaining why it wasn't chosen to begin with and results as per rule 5 i with a state better than the one he has started with.
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the cuban missile crisis and the game childhealthpolicy.vumc.org
After gaining support from ExComm, Kennedy announced a blockade of Cuba on October 22, 1962. However, I think it is good to start with game theory and even though it cannot solve the problem, it help people better clarify their possible actions and consequence, and create their own plans and simplify the issue they encounter in real life. Following these arrows shows that this game is cyclic, with one player always having an immediate incentive to depart from every state: the Soviets from 3,3 to 1,4 ; the United States from 1,4 to 4,1 ; the Soviets from 4,1 to 2,2 ; and the United States from 2,2 to 3,3. On the other hand, given no such evidence, a U. Another game more accurately represents the preferences of American and Soviet leaders, but even for this game standard game theory does not explain their choices. Hence, 2,2 becomes the survivor when U. Although in one sense the United States "won" by getting the Soviets to withdraw their missiles, Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union at the same time extracted from President Kennedy a promise not to invade Cuba, which seems to indicate that the eventual outcome was a compromise of sorts.
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Game Theory and the Cuban Missile Crisis
It was a cold war that triggered immediately the US U-2 spy plane spotted and photographed an installation point by the Soviet assembling a medium-range-ballistic missile Weldes, 1999 From the beginning of the crisis, US president, Kennedy believed that the existence of the missiles in Cuba were not acceptable and they had a challenge to remove the missiles without causing huge conflicts. This would mean that the USSR would have significant first and second strike power over the US, being able to potentially hit many major cities. In the article, he is quoted as saying, The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art. Secondly, is what happens when the grid is expanded. It is determined by working backward from where play, theoretically, can end up state 1, at the completion of the cycle. This leads to nuclear war.
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Game Theory and the Cuban Missile Crisis : Networks Course blog for INFO 2040/CS 2850/Econ 2040/SOC 2090
The Sino-Soviet split in the late 1950s meant that the USSR had lost one of its valuable allies, weakening its position on the global stage. The first number in the ordered pairs for each outcome is the payoff to the row player United States , the second number the payoff to the column player Soviet Union. This strategy is not stable, because both players would have an incentive to defect to their more belligerent strategy. TOM seeks to explain strategically the progression of temporary states that lead to a more permanent outcome. Thus, the higher the number, the greater the payoff; but the payoffs are only ordinal, that is, they indicate an ordering of outcomes from best to worst, not the degree to which a player prefers one outcome over another. The Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated the dangers of brinkmanship. Because it is less costly for both sides if the Soviet Union is the initiator of compromise - eliminating the need for an air strike - it is not surprising that this is what happened.
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Cuban Missile Crisis through Game Theory : Networks Course blog for INFO 2040/CS 2850/Econ 2040/SOC 2090
Finally, should the players be at the mutually worst outcome of 1,1 , that is, nuclear war, both would obviously desire to move away from it, making the strategies associated with it, like those with 3,3 , unstable. However in the full rules of the game this is not a plausible situation least not with 2 players. He also thought of employing a blockade by the US navy meaning that the island would be quarantined to prevent the Soviets from bringing missiles and other military equipment LINK TO CUBAN MISSILE VIDEO Application of game theory to the Cuban missile crisis Game theory is a section of mathematics that deals with decisions-making in social connections. Eventually they may arrive at a new state, after, say, treaty negotiations, in which it is rational for both countries to sign the treaty that was previously negotiated. He was referring to the real situation that Soviet Union tried to defuse the most dangerous nuclear confrontation between two super powers. Therefore, based on above consideration, air strike would never be the first choice for USA.
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Cuban Missile Crisis
In the early hours of 1 January 1959, Batista relinquished his presidency and fled the country. The possible outcomes of a game depend on the choices made by all players, and can be ranked in order of preference by each player. Recognising the severity of the situation, Khrushchev and Kennedy came to an agreement. The preface to the standoff was this: Khrushchev and Castro had agreed to secretly place soviet operated medium range missiles in Cuba. The goal of America was immediate removal of the Soviet missiles and it had two strategies to achieve this. This news triggered the peoples mind that there was a possibility of a nuclear war. So too the Soviet Union was worried of a potential invasion of their communist counterparts as the Bay of Pigs showed the hostility towards Cuba and here lies the mutual goal, Cuba to not be invaded.
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Game theory in Cuban missile crisis : Networks Course blog for INFO 2040/CS 2850/Econ 2040/SOC 2090
After the missiles were detected and the United States imposed a blockade on Cuba, the game was in state BM, which is worst for the United States 1 and best for the Soviet Union 4. Again we have indeterminacy, but not because of multiple Nash equilibria, as in Chicken, but rather because there are no equilibria in pure strategies in Alternative. When Castro introduced reforms that penalised the US in 1 960, Eisenhower retaliated by: Diplomatic ties To seal off a place or country to prevent goods or people from entering or leaving. They both have a few strategies, but they have to give great consideration on thinking all possible decision made by the other nation. . Moreover, the fact that the United States held out the possibility of escalating the conflict to at least an air strike indicates that the initial blockade decision was not considered final - that is, the United States considered its strategy choices still open after imposing the blockade.
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Game_childhealthpolicy.vumc.org
After a US-backed military coup, he regained his power in 1952 and ran Cuba as a military dictatorship until 1959. Castro formed a new liberal nationalist government. By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. While ostensibly a game of Chicken, the Cuban missile crisis is in fact not well modelled by this game. Game theory The Cuban missile crisis is an example of two players nations interacting under a static game.
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