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April 20, 2006
The Nash Equilibrium
It's all about the math.
I am thinking about the problems we face if Iran goes nuclear, so, I was doing a little light reading tonight, and thought I would share some Juju with you.
The Nash Equilibrium is a kind of optimal collective strategy in a game involving two or more players, where no player has anything to gain by changing only his or her own strategy. If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.
This made me think of Fail Safe, which, if (or when) it fails, fails in a way that will cause no harm or at least a minimum of harm to other devices or danger to personnel.
Which made me think about Fail Deadly, a concept which encourages deterrence by guaranteeing an immediate, automatic and overwhelming response to an attack.
Which made me think about Massive Retaliation, which is a military doctrine in which an entity commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack. For example, if country A launched a nuclear missile at country B, if country B were using the massive retaliation policy, country B would then be committed to launch 10 nuclear missiles against country A. The aim of this strategy is to deter an adversary from performing the initial attack. For it to work, it must not only be publically announced, but the adversary must believe that the entity announcing the policy has the capability and is willing to go through with it in the event of the attack.
Which made me think about Mutual Assured Destruction, which is the doctrine of military strategy in which a full scale use of nuclear weapons by one of two opposing sides would result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent the use of the very same weapons. It is also cited by gun control opponents as the reason why crime rates sometimes tend to be lower in heavily armed populations. The strategy is effectively a form of Nash Equilibrium, in which both sides are attempting to avoid their worst possible outcome--Nuclear Annihilation.
Which made me remember these are dangerous times we live in.
If the Islamofascist regime in Iran gets the bomb...we're all fucked.
Sweet dreams.
This is some Bad Bad Juju.
Posted by Yabu at April 20, 2006 12:05 AM
Yep. And who their financial backers are bothers me a LOT. It's history repeating itself...it's the same old war..between the same old people..when you get right down to it.
Posted by: Kelly at April 20, 2006 08:13 AM
... good words, Yabu, good words.... but I have a feeling we have been fucked for a good while now....
Posted by: Eric at April 20, 2006 08:27 AM
We can quit assuming suicide bombers don't have nukes. The mullahs who run Iran actually believe they'd win in a nuclear exchange with Israel, and it's hard to argue with the math: 1,000,000,000 Muslims -vs- 6,000,000 Jews.
Can anyone explain what it was about the Shah's regime that was so bad Jimmy Carter just had to jerk the rug out from under it?
Posted by: Bob at April 20, 2006 03:56 PM
Posted by: Bob at April 21, 2006 12:29 PM
Looked through your site. Good work! Ken.
Posted by: lwka@yahoo.com at June 4, 2006 05:35 AM
