A GAME MODEL OF COUNTERPROLIFERATION, WITH MULTIPLE ENTRANTS

H. McCORMICK Gordon and Guillermo Owen ()
Additional contact information
H. McCORMICK Gordon: Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93943, USA
Guillermo Owen: Department of Mathematics, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93943, USA

International Game Theory Review (IGTR), 2006, vol. 08, issue 03, 339-353

Abstract: We consider a game-theoretic model of counterproliferation, in which a single Incumbent (holding nuclear weapons) is faced with a sequence of potential Entrants (who are considering developing and deploying a nuclear capability or other weapons of mass destruction of their own). The Incumbent can either choose to act preemptively, with certain costs, or allow the Entrants to deploy a nuclear capability, with consequent costs due to the potential for nuclear blackmail. How should each of the players decide?The players' decisions are optimally based not only on their own cost functions (which each knows) but also on their opponent's cost structure (which is known only in probability). Entrants (other than the first) can learn something about the Incumbent's cost structure from decisions they have made in the past. It turns out that, depending on a would-be Entrant's cost structure, a record of preemption by the Incumbent can have either adeterrentorprovocationeffect. Understanding the basis for each of these contradictory effects is critical to designing an optimal counterproliferation strategy.

Keywords: Game theory; counter-proliferation; deterrence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B4 C0 C6 C7 D5 D7 M2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219198906000953
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:wsi:igtrxx:v:08:y:2006:i:03:n:s0219198906000953

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S0219198906000953

Access Statistics for this article

International Game Theory Review (IGTR) is currently edited by David W K Yeung

More articles in International Game Theory Review (IGTR) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().