Notes on Schelling's "Strategy of Conflict" (1960)

post by MichaelA · 2021-02-10T02:48:25.847Z · LW · GW · 8 comments

Contents

  Overall thoughts on the book
  My anki cards
  Some other resources on similar topics
None
8 comments

I'm crossposting this from the EA Forum [EA · GW], due to Habryka sort-of suggesting doing so [EA(p) · GW(p)].

The Strategy of Conflict, published in 1960 by Thomas Schelling, is:

A series of closely interrelated essays on game theory, [which] 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. (source)

Here’s a free PDF of the book, and here’s the Audible link.[1]

In this post, I’ll: 

• Share some overall thoughts on the book
• Share the Anki cards I made for myself when reading the book[2]
  • I intend this as a lower-effort alternative to writing notes specifically for public consumption or writing a proper book review
  • If you want to download the cards themselves (along with other nuclear-war-related cards) to import them into your own deck, follow this link.
• List some other resources that people could consider reading/watching if they want to learn about game theory and (nuclear) war

My hope is that this post will draw some effective altruists' (EAs') and rationalists' attention to this interesting book, help them decide whether reading it is worth their time, and help them quickly gain some key insights from the book. (See also Should pretty much all content that's EA-relevant and/or created by EAs be (link)posted to the Forum? [EA · GW])

Overall thoughts on the book

I read The Strategy of Conflict because someone told me they think this is a good book to read if one wishes to understand how international tensions might escalate to nuclear war, how many weapons might be used in a nuclear war, and whether countervalue targeting would occur. The book’s concepts, framings, insights, and examples indeed seemed useful for that purpose, as well as for a surprisingly wide range of other issues. 

This was despite me already knowing some game theory - maybe around as much as one learns in a typical undergraduate economics degree? That said, I expect someone who already knows much more game theory than I did would get somewhat less out of the book.

I’ve ranked this as roughly the 9th (out of 44) most useful-seeming EA-relevant book I’ve read since learning about EA [EA(p) · GW(p)]. If I wasn’t doing research related to war, I think I might’ve ranked it closer to 20-25th.

There were some sections of the book that I found uninteresting and/or hard to follow - particularly chapter 9, which I ended up partly skimming. This was basically due to some parts of the book using lots of symbols and equations without regularly reminding readers what the symbols stood for or regularly walking readers through the intuition of what’s going on. But perhaps more maths/econ/technically minded people would have no trouble with those parts of the book. 

I also skipped Appendices B and C, as it sounded like they would be hard to follow and would cover relatively technical points about game theory that might be outdated by now anyway (i.e., perhaps the field has already elegantly resolved the issues Schelling was noting).

My anki cards

What follows are the Anki cards I made for myself. Some include direct quotes without having quote marks, while others are just my own interpretations (rather than definitely 100% parroting what the book is saying) but don’t note that fact. It’s possible that some of these cards include mistakes, or will be confusing or misleading out of context. 

The indented parts are the questions. The answers are in "spoiler-blocks"; hover over them to reveal. And the parts in square brackets are my notes-to-self.

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What two legal privileges does Schelling mention that corporations have?

[p.43]

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Schelling says "The mandatory secret ballot is...

---

What term does Smithies use for the tactic of deliberately exhausting one's annual budgetary allowance so early in the year that the need for more funds is irresistibly urgent?

[Smithies' book was called The Budgetary Process in the United States, so I'm guessing he used the term in relation to the US government specifically.

Cited by Schelling.]

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Schelling defines tacit bargaining as...

[p.53]

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Schelling notes that the concept of "coordination" that's relevant in tacit bargaining is also often relevant in explicit bargaining. What are 3 common features of agreements which illustrate this?

[p.67-68. I'm paraphrasing. I just chose the first 3 examples; he also gave others.]

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Schelling suggests a big part of bargaining skill is...

[p.69]

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What point from Schelling's discussion of tacit bargaining reminded me of the landmine ban treaty and Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons?

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Schelling suggests that forces taking/sacrificing any land beyond their side of 38th parallel or the Taiwan Strait could have...

[And it thus could've been unstable. P.76]

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Schelling gives a three-part typology of games of strategy, in which one type is pure-conflict games. What are the other two types?

[p. 88-89. I'm not sure if these are the standard terms nowadays.]

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Schelling gives a three-part typology of games in which one type is games of luck. What are the other two types?

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Schelling highlights 5 areas of asymmetries between the two players in a threat situation which make threats a rich subject for study. These are asymmetries in…

[p. 131]

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Schelling says enforcement of agreements/promises depends on at least two things:

P.132]

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Schelling defines a "strategic move" as:

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What does Schelling suggest operates similarly to the "threat" of inadvertent war?

[~p.190-195]

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Schelling suggests compellent threats often take the form of administering punishment ___, whereas deterrent threats often take the form of administering punishment ___.

---

What are 2 key points about how the "threat" represented by risk of inadvertent war might deter aggressive acts and crises?

[Schelling, p. 189-190.]

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The risk of inadvertent war can operate like a threat. If provocative acts are taken despite this "threat" yet war still doesn't result, this…

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The risk of inadvertent war can operate like a threat. Does this require that either actor intended to use that risk as a threat?

[Schelling, p. 189-190.]

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Schelling says there's a distinction between nuclear and other weapons in the sense pertinent to the limiting of war. He also says that, if he's right about that but nevertheless the US wants maximum freedom to use atomic weapons, then we ought to, in the interest of limiting war, ...

P. 264]

---

Schelling argues that a limitation on the number of missiles two adversaries can have might be more stabilising the larger the number permitted. He gives two reasons for this:

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Schelling highlights 9 institutional and structural characteristics of bargaining situations that may affect how commitment tactics are/can be used. These are…

[p.28-35. That's a very long answer. It'd be good if I could somehow categorise or chunk these ideas.]

Some other resources on similar topics

• Six years later (in 1966), Schelling published the book Arms and Influence
  • I haven’t read this, so I can’t compare it to The Strategy of Conflict myself
  • But it’s possible it’s more up-to-date and useful
    • An interesting study I read kept referencing that book and didn't reference The Strategy of Conflict
    • On the other hand, I think I recall another source referencing The Strategy of Conflict as an essential classic without mentioning Arms and Influence
• I recently finished the 24-part lecture series Game Theory with Ben Polak from Yale.
  • I found that useful, interesting, and surprisingly engaging (the lecturer is good at avoiding dryness and bringing the topic to life)
• In 2008, RAND produced the monograph Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century
  • The whole text is available as a free PDF at that link
  • This is focused on war (especially but not only nuclear war), but still includes a fair amount of theory, at least in Chapter 2
  • I only read the summary and the first two chapters, but found it very interesting and useful
    • I might read the rest later
      • The main reason I’ve hesitated is that it’s from 2008, and the topics beyond Chapter 2 seem like the sort of things that may have changed notably in the 13 years since then
  • Let me know if you'd find it useful for me to share the Anki cards I made when reading that (it wouldn't take me long)
• See also Books / book reviews on nuclear risk, WMDs, great power war? [EA · GW]

Note: This post contains only my personal opinions, and was written in a personal capacity rather than in my capacity as a researcher for Rethink Priorities.

[1] I generally prefer listening to audiobooks rather than reading physical books/ebooks, but in this case I downloaded the free PDF into my iPad’s Kindle app. This was because a few reviewers of this book on Audible suggest that they think they’d have been better off with a physical book rather than the audiobook, because the book uses a fair few equations and graphs.

[2] See here for the article that inspired me to actually start using Anki properly. Hat tip to Michelle Hutchinson [EA · GW] for linking to that article and thus prompting me to read it. Note that some of the Anki cards that I made and include in this post violate some of the advice in that article - in particular, the advice to try to ensure that questions and answers each express only one idea. 

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