the Pakistani government could use the money and required an accounting of expenditures. The Pakistani government balked at taking the aid. Senator John Kerry clarified that the bill was not designed to interfere at all with sovereign Pakistani decisions; that is, he essentially assured the Pakistani leadership that the United States would not closely monitor use of the funds. Shortly afterward, the Pakistani government greatly stepped up its pursuit of militants operating within its borders. By February 2010 they had captured the number two Taliban leader, but so far they have certainly not terminated the Taliban’s ability to fight back. This is as predicted.
On the negative side, I presumed, with some evidence within the model’s results, that the U.S. government was unlikely to grant Pakistan $1.5 billion. Still, this was treated as a contingency rather than a firm prediction. The model led to firm predictions under the contingency of less than $1.5 billion in aid (little effort against the militants) and under the contingency of $1.5 billion in aid (significant effort against the militants). The first contingency is consistent with Pakistani efforts prior to passage of the aid bill. The model was accurate regarding the consequences of giving Pakistan $1.5 billion in aid after September 2009, and it is noteworthy that the analysis also led to the conclusion that there was no reason to give Pakistan more than $1.5 billion per year. Congress got that right!
Results out of Pakistan are largely consistent with the model’s predictions, both in terms of the big picture (given that forecasts were made under alternative contingencies) and in terms of lots of nitty-gritty detail. So far, so good!
How about the other big predictions in the chapter “Dare to Be Embarrassed!”? They were about Iran-Iraq relations after the summer of 2010 and were contingent on whether the United States keeps troops in Iraq or fully withdraws. As I am writing in March 2010, we do not yet know which contingency will arise. We will just have to be patient and wait to see what happens during the period covered by the predictions. That, after all, is the point of the chapter. Meanwhile, perhaps some Iran and Iraq specialists would care to put into print what they believe will happen (and why) if the United States stays in or pulls out completely.
Finally, the last chapter discussed what was likely to come out of the Copenhagen summit on climate change. As I was writing the chapter, there was widespread optimism that Copenhagen would be a turning point leading to serious efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Here are just a few statements on expectations for Copenhagen written roughly around the time when
“The architecture of the Copenhagen treaty should initiate a race to the top…. Copenhagen has the potential to give the world a clear path to rapidly bending the global emission’s curve—and give millions of people and species a chance at survival.” (World Wildlife Federation, “WWF Expectations for the Copenhagen Climate Deal 2009,” March 2009, www.worldwildlife.org/climate/Publications/WWFBinaryitem12417.pdf)
In a report on German government expectations, Germanwatch reported, “Important and decisive steps have been taken in Bali. They give reason to believe that a new global agreement on climate protection for the time after 2012, i.e. following the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period, will come into effect.” (“Bali, Poznan, Copenhagen—Triple Jump Towards a New Quality of Climate Policy?,” www.germanwatch.org/klima/bapocoe.htm)
And in a report from
Meanwhile, using data put together by my students, the game’s forecast was for failure at Copenhagen, and that, sadly, is just what we got.
The predictions thus far have been pretty well borne out by subsequent events, so there is not much to be embarrassed about. Rather, the match between predictions and outcomes over the past year may be seen as encouraging to those who believe that through the transparent application of logic and evidence we can anticipate and perhaps influence the course of events for the better.
The model’s success continues to garner the attention of people making high-stakes decisions and is stimulating others to teach game-theory-based political forecasting. The model’s performance and online availability is even helping to bring this particular rational-actor approach into the classroom in new arenas, including graduate programs in social work, psychiatry, and business and in military training. That is most gratifying. With a bit of luck, we may see further integration of a more rational approach to how we understand the decisions and actions of others. Then we may be better able to use that understanding to inform our own decisions, corporate decisions, and decisions in the arena of national security, helping to make the world a more peaceful, more just, and happier place for all of us.
Appendix to the Paperback Edition
Because some of you asked for it:
The figure on this page illustrates a single stage game for a single pair of players (call them A and B) while not displaying the sources of uncertainty in the model. Nature assigns initial probabilities of 0.5 to player types, and the model then applies Bayes’ Rule so that the players can update their beliefs. There are sixteen possible combinations of beliefs about the mix of player types. Each player is uncertain whether the other player is a hawk or a dove or whether the other player is pacific or retaliatory. By hawk I mean someone who prefers to compel a rival to give in to the hawk’s demands even if this necessitates both imposing and enduring costs rather than compromising on the policy outcome. A dove prefers to compromise rather than engage in costly coercion to get the rival to give in. A retaliatory player prefers to defend himself—at potentially high costs—rather than be bullied into giving in, while a pacific player prefers to give in to avoid further costs.
The game is iterated so that payoffs can change from round to round, with a round defined as a sequence of moves through the stage game in the figure. Because the game is solved for all directional pairs, it assumes that players do not know whether they will be moving first, second, or simultaneously with each other player. The game ends, by assumption, when the sum of player payoffs in an iteration is greater than the projected sum of those payoffs in the next iteration.
Structure of the Game: Sketch of One of N2–N Stage
Games Played Simultaneously
A and B uncertain whether other will retaliate if coerced
A and B uncertain whether other will coerce if given the chance
