The UK will soon have to decide whether to maintain its Trident nuclear weapon programme. Clearly, the nuclear capability will be maintained. This has not, though, stopped a fairly vociferous debate on the issue. The basic argument in favour of nuclear weapons, and one that we have heard time and time again in the debate, is that nuclear weapons are to deter attack and not be used. This is encapsulated in the concept of mutual assured destruction or MAD. But, just how solid is the MAD argument? A standard logic goes something like this: If the UK has nuclear weapons then Russia would not attack the UK because the UK would have the capability to destroy Russia. Thomas Schelling, in the Strategy of Conflict , pointed out that there is a basic flaw in this logic. To see why let us set out a hypothetical game tree, see below. Russia moves first by deciding whether to attack the UK. Then the UK decides wheth...
Some random thoughts on game theory, behavioural economics, and human behaviour