Jong Il’s preferred position was to agree to a deal but to structure it so that he could cheat later, reneging on his promises (10 on the scale). According to the experts, Bush wanted the unconditional elimination of North Korea’s nuclear program (100 on the scale). Without some strategizing, then, the two sides were unlikely to reach agreement, since the two most important decision makers were miles apart and both were thought to be reluctant compromisers. Yet a first approximation of the likely outcome suggested strong support for a consequential reduction in North Korea’s nuclear capabilities accompanied by significant U.S. concessions, including security guarantees for North Korea and considerable foreign economic assistance. How did I arrive at that inference?
FIG. 4.1. North Korean Issue
The information collected about each player in the North Korea game—their position on the issue, their salience for the issue, and the clout they could bring to bear—allows us to see how much power there is behind each possible outcome. Potential influence, one of the three pieces of information, tells us how persuasive each player could be, but not how persuasive each is. That depends on their willingness to apply their influence to the problem, and that in turn is determined by how salient the issue is. So we can define a player’s power—the pressure they really exert to shape the outcome—as equal to their influence multiplied by their salience.
Using that information, we can formulate the first of two pretty reliable first cuts at a forecast (ignoring vetoes for now). Figure 4.2, on the next page, shows the distribution of power in support of each of the major policy stances on the issue scale. Think of it as showing how much power backs each option. It is like a map of mountainous terrain, with the positions garnering the most powerful support forming high, prominent peaks, and the positions with little support amounting to not much more than molehills. This picture of the power terrain is based on the answers to the questions posed to the experts about position, salience, and potential influence.
We can extract two insights from figure 4.2 that can help us predict if we are looking at a purely international political decision (which we are not). First, there really isn’t that much clout supporting North Korea’s nuclear program. None of the positions that favor North Korea’s keeping a nuclear program are backed by a really large amount of power. Second, piling the mountains of power one on top of the other as we move across the spectrum of choices, we discover that the pile does not reach a majority of all the power until we get to the position designated as “Eliminate Nuclear Programs / U.S. Concessions.”
Since we are continuing to assume, as we did back in Game Theory 101, that stakeholders prefer positions closer to their own to positions farther away, our first first-cut prediction is “Eliminate Nuclear Programs / U.S. Concessions.” Why? Because if it takes a majority of power to enforce an outcome, then the winning position is the one for which the total of power to the left of it is less than 50 percent and the total of power to the right of it is also less than 50 percent. The only position for which that is true is “Eliminate Nuclear Program / U.S. Concessions.”2
FIG. 4.2. The North Korean Nuclear Power Landscape
This prediction has some important limitations. For one thing, it ignores vetoes. Since it is not even close to Kim Jong Il’s desired outcome (and is not all that close to the United States position either), we can be confident that North Korea will reject it unless there is sufficient political pressure on Kim Jong Il to get him to change his position. So we see we really must think through not only the international aspects of the issue but also the domestic dynamics in North Korea. To be sure, we need to work out whether it is possible for foreign stakeholders (like the U.S. president or the South Korean president) to change Kim’s mind. But we also have to analyze the internal political pressure Kim might face if he resists or if he concedes the proposed solution by outsiders. These are some of the things my computer model does that are difficult to do in our heads.
We can look back at the information we collected from experts and assemble a second preliminary prediction. Again we will have to be mindful that we are ignoring the possibility of vetoes for the moment, as well as the dynamics that lead players to alter positions in response to credible threats and promises.
Rather than just look at the 50 percent break point in the power landscape, we can apply a different method to arrive at a sensible preliminary prediction. Let’s multiply the influence of each player (calling influence I) by his or her salience (S) and multiply that result by the numerical value of the position each player advocates (P), then add those totals up for all of the players and divide that total by the sum of the influence times salience for each of the players (sum of I x S x P)/(sum of I x S). Now we have computed a value called a weighted mean. This is, roughly speaking, an average of what people, with their influence and commitment to a given issue taken into account, want. With the answer to this calculation in hand—it is 59.8—refer back to figure 4.1. There we see numerical values associated with possible solutions to the issue, and so we can see that 59.8 is equivalent to the position designated as “Slow Reduction, U.S. Grants Diplomatic Recognition.” The details behind the calculation leading to this prediction can be found in the first appendix.3
Now we have two first-cut ways to predict what is likely to happen. Taking the two together, we can be fairly confident (still ignoring vetoes) that the solution to North Korea’s nuclear problem lies somewhere between the initial, majority-power approximation (about 80 on the issue scale in figure 4.1) and the weighted mean position (60 on the issue scale). That easily, we have created pretty reliable initial forecasts for this issue—a narrow range within which a resolution is likely to be found if no one exercises a veto. The initial forecasts mean substantively that at the outset there was a possible resolution supporting a slow reduction in North Korea’s nuclear capability followed by U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I will say more about that in a moment.
The really simple power-majority view coupled with the slightly more complicated weighted-mean view offers a good answer to the range of likely agreements, but they do not result in the best prediction possible. That takes a computer program to calculate the solution to a game in which players make policy proposals and try to exploit each other’s egos to alter stances, climb over or reshape the mountains of power that lie in their way, and get the outcome they want. Still and all, there’s now enough information to make a pretty reliable prediction. This baseline forecast is likely to be right around 70 to 75 percent of the time.4
Take a look back at the hills and valleys in figure 4.2, remembering that we are looking at the lay of the land in 2004. Doing so helps us understand that being really powerful does not assure success. The tallest mountain, the biggest mass of power, supports the idea that North Korea should completely eliminate its nuclear program in exchange for concessions. That mass of power supports an outcome around 80 on the issue scale (figure 4.1). This was not Kim’s point of view, it was not Bush’s point of view, and it also was not the weighted mean power’s point of view. That mean power perspective, located at the position labeled “Some Reduction /U.S. Recognition,” actually had the smallest bloc of power behind it. Although not supported by many, it was nevertheless the position around which an initial compromise might most easily have been constructed. That means that in 2004 one of the first-cut predictions included the prospect that North Korea could be induced to reduce substantially, but not eliminate, its nuclear capability in exchange for significant U.S. concessions, including perhaps even diplomatic recognition and certainly including consequential foreign aid (not shown on the figure).
Of course, this forecasting method doesn’t tells us how to get Kim Jong Il and President Bush to agree to the position it represents or to some other result that could be successfully negotiated. That’s where game theory comes in. Still, it is interesting to realize that, except for working out how to get Kim and Bush to agree to this
