Optimal defence-attack strategies between one defender and two attackers

Di Wu, Xiangbin Yan, Rui Peng and Shaomin Wu

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2020, vol. 71, issue 11, 1830-1846

Abstract: This paper analyses the optimal strategies for one defender and two attackers in a defence-attack game, where a) the defender allocates its resource into defending against and attacking the two attackers, and b) the two attackers, after observing the action of the defender, allocate their resources into attacking and defending against the defender, on either a cooperative or non-cooperative basis. On a cooperative basis, for each of the defender’s given strategies, the two attackers work together to maximise the sum of their cumulative prospect values while anticipating the eight possible game outcomes. On a non-cooperative basis, for each of the defender’s given strategies, each attacker simultaneously yet independently tries to maximise their own cumulative prospect value. In both cases, the defender maximises its cumulative prospect value while anticipating the attackers’ actions. Backward induction is employed to obtain the optimal defence and attack strategies for all scenarios. Numerical examples are performed to illustrate the applications of the strategies. In general, we find two opposing effects considering the attackers’ strategies and analyse the alteration of strategies for the participants under two different risk preferences: risk-averse and risk seeking. The reasons for the alteration are also performed to illustrate the practical applications.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01605682.2019.1630332 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tjorxx:v:71:y:2020:i:11:p:1830-1846

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjor20

DOI: 10.1080/01605682.2019.1630332

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Operational Research Society is currently edited by Tom Archibald

More articles in Journal of the Operational Research Society from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().