Game Theory and The Cuban Missile Crisis

Game theory and the Cuban missile crisis
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Theory of Moves
Chicken is the usual game used to model conflicts in which the players are on a collision course. The players
may be drivers approaching each other on a narrow road, in which each has the choice of swerving to avoid a
collision or not swerving. 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.
While ostensibly a game of Chicken, the Cuban missile crisis is in fact not well modelled by this game. 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.
Classical Game Theory and the Missile Crisis

Game theory is a branch of mathematics concerned with decision-making in
social interactions. It applies to situations (games) where there are two or more
people (called players) each attempting to choose between two more more ways
of acting (called strategies). 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.
In some two-person, two-strategy games, there are combinations of strategies

for the players that are in a certain sense "stable". This will be true when neither
player, by departing from its strategy, can do better. Two such strategies are
together known as a Nash equilibrium, named after John Nash, a mathematician
who received the Nobel prize in economics in 1994 for his work on game theory.
Nash equilibria do not necessarily lead to the best outcomes for one, or even
both, players. Moreover, for the games that will be analyzed - in which players can only rank outcomes ("ordinal
games") but not attach numerical values to them ("cardinal games") - they may not always exist. (While they
always exist, as Nash showed, in cardinal games, Nash equilibria in such games may involve "mixed strategies,"
which will be described later.)
The Cuban missile crisis was precipitated by a Soviet attempt in October 1962 to install medium-range and
intermediate-range nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Cuba that were capable of hitting a large portion of the
United States. The goal of the United States was immediate removal of the Soviet missiles, and U.S. policy
makers seriously considered two strategies to achieve this end [see Figure 1 below ]:
1. A naval blockade (B) , or "quarantine" as it was euphemistically called, to prevent shipment of more
missiles, possibly followed by stronger action to induce the Soviet Union to withdraw the missiles already
installed.
2. A "surgical" air strike (A) to wipe out the missiles already installed, insofar as possible, perhaps
followed by an invasion of the island.
The alternatives open to Soviet policy makers were:
1. Withdrawal (W) of their missiles.

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2. Maintenance (M) of their missiles.
Soviet Union (S.U.)
Withdrawal (W) Maintenance (M)
United Blockade Compromise Soviet victory,

States (B) (3,3) U.S. defeat
(U.S.) (2,4)
Air strike U.S. victory, Nuclear war

(A) Soviet defeat (1,1)
(4,2)
Figure 1: Cuban missile crisis as Chicken
Key: (x, y) = (payoff to U.S., payoff to S.U.)

4=best; 3=next best; 2=next worst; 1=worst
Nash equilibria underscored
These strategies can be thought of as alternative courses of action that the two sides, or "players" in the parlance
of game theory, can choose. They lead to four possible outcomes, which the players are assumed to rank as
follows: 4=best; 3=next best; 2=next worst; and l=worst. 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 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).
Needless to say, the strategy choices, probable outcomes, and associated payoffs shown in Figure 1 provide
only a skeletal picture of the crisis as it developed over a period of thirteen days. Both sides considered more
than the two alternatives listed, as well as several variations on each. The Soviets, for example, demanded
withdrawal of American missiles from Turkey as a quid pro quo for withdrawal of their own missiles from Cuba, a
demand publicly ignored by the United States.
Nevertheless, most observers of this crisis believe that the two superpowers were on a collision course, which is
actually the title of one book describing this nuclear confrontation. They also agree that neither side was eager to
take any irreversible step, such as one of the drivers in Chicken might do by defiantly ripping off the steering
wheel in full view of the other driver, thereby foreclosing the option of swerving.
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. But this is not game
theory's prediction for Chicken, because the strategies associated with compromise do not constitute a Nash
equilibrium.
Further Reading
1. "Theory of Moves", Steven J. Brams. Cambridge University Press, 1994.

2. "Game Theory and Emotions", Steven J. Brams in Rationality and Society, Vol. 9, No. 1, pages 93-127,
February 1997.
3. "Long-term Behaviour in the Theory of Moves", Stephen J. Willson, in Theory and Decision, Vol. 45, No.
3, pages 201-240, December 1998.
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4. "Catch-22 and King-of-the-Mountain Games: Cycling, Frustration and Power", Steven J. Brams and
Christopher B. Jones, in Rationality and Society, Vol. 11, No. 2, pages 139-167, May 1999.
5. "Modeling Free Choice in Games", Steven J. Brams in Topics in Game Theory and Mathematical
Economics: Essays in Honor of Robert J. Aumann, pages 41-62. Edited by Myrna H. Wooders. American
Mathematical Society, 1999.
About the author

Steven J. Brams is professor of politics at New York University. He is the author or co-author of 13 books that
involve applications of game theory and social choice theory to voting and elections, bargaining and fairness,
international relations, and the Bible and theology. His most recent books are Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting
to Dispute Resolution (1996) and The Win-Win Solution: Guaranteeing Fair Shares to Everybody (1999), both
co-authored with Alan D. Taylor. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the
Public Choice Society, a Guggenheim Fellow, and was a Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar and a
President of the the Peace Science Society (International).
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Game theory and the Cuban missile crisis

Classical Game Theory and the Missile Crisis

In some two-person, two-strategy games, there are combinations of strategies

The alternatives open to Soviet policy makers were:

1. Withdrawal (W) of their missiles.

Soviet Union (S.U.)

Withdrawal (W) Maintenance (M)

United Blockade Compromise Soviet victory,

Air strike U.S. victory, Nuclear war

Figure 1: Cuban missile crisis as Chicken

Key: (x, y) = (payoff to U.S., payoff to S.U.)

1. "Theory of Moves", Steven J. Brams. Cambridge University Press, 1994.

About the author

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