Looking through the topics that we have covered thus far in lecture I became particularly interested in Game Theory. In my personal opinion, games govern most of our lives, whether directly or indirectly. Since this idea is present during most social interactions I thought it would be interesting to find an article about this topic. When looking for an article that related to this idea I was able to find one quite intriguing, Game theory and the Cuban missile crisis.

This article deals with the historic event of the Cuban Missile Crisis and how it can be viewed through the definitions of Game Theory. Although it would be kind of inaccurate to relate such an important even as a game, since a lot was at stake, Game theory and the Cuban missile crisis points out how it reduced to the basic ideas of games. It begins by stating the strategies that each superpower had (U.S. and the Soviet-Union) and their respective payoffs.

Soviet Union (S.U.)
		Withdrawal (W)		Maintenance (M)
United States (US)	Blockade (B)	Compromise (3,3)		Soviet victory, U.S. capitulation (1,4)
	Air strike (A)	“Dishonourable” U.S. action, Soviets thwarted (2,2)		“Honourable” U.S. action, Soviets thwarted (4,1)

As shown in the image above, the crisis behaved somehow as a game since each nation was looking to maximize their payoff. Furthermore, from the graph one can see the Nash Equilibria (Air Strike, Maintenance) & (Blockade, Maintenance) and the Social Welfare Maximizer (Blockade, Withdrawal). Looking at this we see that, as discussed in lecture, the Nash Equilibrium is not always the best set of strategies. In fact, the crisis was handled by choosing the Social Welfare Maximizer as the best set of strategies, but as the article shows, that was not that simple to choose. The articles continues to demonstrate that Compromise was chosen as the best set of strategies since both nations were taking into account not the particular best payoff of each nation but the overall best set of responses that maximized the sum of the individual payoffs. Moreover, the article follows with a discussion of the “Theory of Moves” to show that both nations were somewhat forced choose the best joint strategy since each nation had to take into account the possibility of the other nation playing a better strategy. To explain this one must notice that no nation had a particular best response, thus each nation had to choose their strategy based on what the other nation did. In such a case, as the article describes, the nations would choose their strategies based on the other nation’s strategy and continue to do this until they come to an agreement, which would occur once both nations agree on a set of strategies and notice that no other set of strategies would make them better off.

Such an article clearly connects to the definitions and ideas discussed in lecture. This particular article covers the topics of “Game Theory” and “Theory of Moves” through the example mentioned above, which views the Cuban Missile Crisis as a game. It shows, as in class, how in a game each player must take into account not only their payoffs but their opponent’s possible moves (since it is based on this that their payoff will be defined) and, additionally, how not having a best response can affect the outcomes and play of the game.