To get a successful negotiation:
1) At least one of the parties must really want a successful outcome*, and
2) That parties (or parties) must be able to get all necessary negotiation partners to want it too.
It sounds simple, but you'd be surprised how much of the literature I read doesn't seem to be based on this basic point.
* I mean REALLY want, in the sense of expecting to gain an important, impactful benefit or avoid an important, impactful loss; merely thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea, all told, is not enough for this condition.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
South Korea: domestic vs. international markets
It's a bit surprising to me how few moderately important secondary powers there seem to be in the climate debate. It's really South Korea and Brazil... Maybe Indonesia. Saudi Arabia as well, I suppose, though in a very different way.
South Korea is in an interesting position because it's advanced enough to really cash in on a green tech market boom, but doesn't have the sheer market size-based power the major players do. South Korea has been fairly successful in playing the game with this handicap thus far. One of my fellow grad students writes about the different ways the South Koreans and Japanese have played the national vs. international markets game recently; in particular, he looks at the cellular market, where South Korea has been fairly successful in adopting international standards and selling into them, while Japan decided to define its own domestic technology standard for mobile phones, failed to spread it to any other countries, and... well, when was the last time you bought a Japanese phone? Japanese phones have the Japanese market cornered, though!
I'm returning to this idea of domestic vs. international markets in thinking about South Korea. Smart grid and related products are a natural market for South Korea given its industrial profile. And hey, look, they've got a smart grid roadmap! But they face several obstacles, most of which have to do in one way or another with the relationship between their prospective domestic and international markets. I'm working under the assumption - which I believe South Korea would agree with - that they need to be able to sell first to the domestic market successfully, but in such a way as to prepare them to sell successfully to international markets.
One is that a smart grid needs to have at its heart a flexible electricity market that can accommodate things like advanced metering, real time pricing - things that provide consumers with incentives to care about efficiency and demand response. Right now, Korea has a subsidized electricity market that doesn't give consumers these incentives. To provide a good domestic "nursery" for smart grid and related efficiency products that can ultimately be sold abroad, Korea needs to restructure its market to give its domestic consumers reason to care about - and pay for - these types of products. That means liberalizing and desubsidizing, which could create disruption, at least in the short term.
Even if that hurdle is overcome, though, it's not clear that the products that Koreans will want to buy will, in a general sense, be the same products that international markets will want to buy, not least because different international markets differ a lot in this area. The most obvious difference is the one between the fully industrialized countries, which are generally fully electrified, often with aging grids that need to be replaced, added on to, modified, and supplemented; and developing or transitioning countries like China and India where electrification is far from complete and there's huge scope for building smart grids from the ground up. But even within these broad categories, countries differ a lot in terms of what the existing power structure is, what needs the existing industrial profile imposes on it, and what current or future efforts are underway to integrate which kinds of renewable and/or decentralized generation. These differences may be more crucial, more constraining, and more complex than the inter-state differences that constrain a market like mobile phones (or, hey, they might not).
Some key questions might be, which country or set of countries does South Korea most resemble in terms of industry? Which does it want to? Whose strategy for integrating renewables will it most closely follow (it doesn't have a lot of renewables yet)? How much is it willing to distort or restructure its domestic market to prepare itself for selling outside its borders? Can it successfully sell into all markets, or might it need to focus? Could South Korea be a nice nexus point? Is it a little like the US, a little like Europe, a little like Japan, and a little like China?
It's a particularly important issue because South Korea is entering this market earlier than it entered the mobile phone market, such that it could face similar interoperability standards issues, but at an earlier point in their development where Korea could need to make more guesses - but, on the other hand, may have more opportunities to influence international choices. It doesn't want to get marooned - but on the other hand, it could become a leader. It needs to figure out where are the critical branching points, in terms of standards and usage characteristics, that could differentiate markets. How much can Korea lead or dictate by (say, by getting there first, heading meetings, and providing a focal point within a range of possible solutions), and how much will be determined by existing structures and conditions in key international markets?
South Korea is in an interesting position because it's advanced enough to really cash in on a green tech market boom, but doesn't have the sheer market size-based power the major players do. South Korea has been fairly successful in playing the game with this handicap thus far. One of my fellow grad students writes about the different ways the South Koreans and Japanese have played the national vs. international markets game recently; in particular, he looks at the cellular market, where South Korea has been fairly successful in adopting international standards and selling into them, while Japan decided to define its own domestic technology standard for mobile phones, failed to spread it to any other countries, and... well, when was the last time you bought a Japanese phone? Japanese phones have the Japanese market cornered, though!
I'm returning to this idea of domestic vs. international markets in thinking about South Korea. Smart grid and related products are a natural market for South Korea given its industrial profile. And hey, look, they've got a smart grid roadmap! But they face several obstacles, most of which have to do in one way or another with the relationship between their prospective domestic and international markets. I'm working under the assumption - which I believe South Korea would agree with - that they need to be able to sell first to the domestic market successfully, but in such a way as to prepare them to sell successfully to international markets.
One is that a smart grid needs to have at its heart a flexible electricity market that can accommodate things like advanced metering, real time pricing - things that provide consumers with incentives to care about efficiency and demand response. Right now, Korea has a subsidized electricity market that doesn't give consumers these incentives. To provide a good domestic "nursery" for smart grid and related efficiency products that can ultimately be sold abroad, Korea needs to restructure its market to give its domestic consumers reason to care about - and pay for - these types of products. That means liberalizing and desubsidizing, which could create disruption, at least in the short term.
Even if that hurdle is overcome, though, it's not clear that the products that Koreans will want to buy will, in a general sense, be the same products that international markets will want to buy, not least because different international markets differ a lot in this area. The most obvious difference is the one between the fully industrialized countries, which are generally fully electrified, often with aging grids that need to be replaced, added on to, modified, and supplemented; and developing or transitioning countries like China and India where electrification is far from complete and there's huge scope for building smart grids from the ground up. But even within these broad categories, countries differ a lot in terms of what the existing power structure is, what needs the existing industrial profile imposes on it, and what current or future efforts are underway to integrate which kinds of renewable and/or decentralized generation. These differences may be more crucial, more constraining, and more complex than the inter-state differences that constrain a market like mobile phones (or, hey, they might not).
Some key questions might be, which country or set of countries does South Korea most resemble in terms of industry? Which does it want to? Whose strategy for integrating renewables will it most closely follow (it doesn't have a lot of renewables yet)? How much is it willing to distort or restructure its domestic market to prepare itself for selling outside its borders? Can it successfully sell into all markets, or might it need to focus? Could South Korea be a nice nexus point? Is it a little like the US, a little like Europe, a little like Japan, and a little like China?
It's a particularly important issue because South Korea is entering this market earlier than it entered the mobile phone market, such that it could face similar interoperability standards issues, but at an earlier point in their development where Korea could need to make more guesses - but, on the other hand, may have more opportunities to influence international choices. It doesn't want to get marooned - but on the other hand, it could become a leader. It needs to figure out where are the critical branching points, in terms of standards and usage characteristics, that could differentiate markets. How much can Korea lead or dictate by (say, by getting there first, heading meetings, and providing a focal point within a range of possible solutions), and how much will be determined by existing structures and conditions in key international markets?
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Odds and ends
India: the tidal power power? Huh. Okay. This article does provide a stellar demonstration of a problem news articles often have in talking about renewable energy, which is that they like to throw around the term "leadership" when talking about installed capacity of various forms of energy. To me, this isn't a very useful form of "leadership" (particularly when it's an industry with very low levels of installed capacity in general - declaring leadership on the basis of one installation is sort of silly). I wish news articles would focus more on leadership in terms of creating technology or selling product; that can be related to installed capacity, if you make a point of buying domestically, or if you're very good at bringing new technologies inside your borders and stripping the knowledge from them to provide the basis for a domestic industry, but it's not directly connected.
News articles tend to conflate, the two, I think; hence this one, which concludes, "And with that, the country hopes to make its mark on the renewable energy sector globally – deemed important to an emerging superpower as it seems that present-day global supremacy wars are being fought on the alternative energy pitch." The plant's being built by a British company. It may well help India develop a domestic tidal power industry in the long run, but it's not "making a mark" on the renewable energy sector in an economic competition sense.
I hear President Obama talked a lot about clean energy in the SotU! Points for effort, Mr. President, but sadly, if you have to tell people it's a Sputnik moment, it's not a Sputnik moment. Would that it were. Am I pleased that he made it a priority? Huh. From a saving the planet point of view, of course. More investment is an absolute good from that perspective, and of course I think it will benefit the US in general to not screw up the planet. But from a narrower national strategy perspective? I'm not sure. If I thought we had the political will to go whole hog on it, I would be thrilled. But with China having a stronger set of built-in incentives to push hard on this already, and our tendency to be comparatively half-hearted on this sort of thing, the heretic in me wonders if maybe we should be focusing our tech investment somewhere with less international competition that could still have high payoffs in terms of growth. Let's say I hope we find the political will to really follow through on this one, because it would be better for us and everyone if we did.
News articles tend to conflate, the two, I think; hence this one, which concludes, "And with that, the country hopes to make its mark on the renewable energy sector globally – deemed important to an emerging superpower as it seems that present-day global supremacy wars are being fought on the alternative energy pitch." The plant's being built by a British company. It may well help India develop a domestic tidal power industry in the long run, but it's not "making a mark" on the renewable energy sector in an economic competition sense.
I hear President Obama talked a lot about clean energy in the SotU! Points for effort, Mr. President, but sadly, if you have to tell people it's a Sputnik moment, it's not a Sputnik moment. Would that it were. Am I pleased that he made it a priority? Huh. From a saving the planet point of view, of course. More investment is an absolute good from that perspective, and of course I think it will benefit the US in general to not screw up the planet. But from a narrower national strategy perspective? I'm not sure. If I thought we had the political will to go whole hog on it, I would be thrilled. But with China having a stronger set of built-in incentives to push hard on this already, and our tendency to be comparatively half-hearted on this sort of thing, the heretic in me wonders if maybe we should be focusing our tech investment somewhere with less international competition that could still have high payoffs in terms of growth. Let's say I hope we find the political will to really follow through on this one, because it would be better for us and everyone if we did.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Panama canal negotiations
Early in my grad school career, I did a project with a fellow grad student looking at conflict behavior. We looked, among other cases, at the Panama invasion, and found, among other things, that one reason the Panama invasion happened was because the process of escalation made it difficult to back down even when backing down was possibly in everyone's best interest. Specifically, the US reached a point in negotiations where it decided to offer a deal which was believed to fulfill Noriega's minimum needs for a deal. But Noriega rejected the deal, likely because it was offered by Reagan (an outgoing president) and would need to be fulfilled by Bush (an incoming president who would be facing reelection.) The run-up process to invasion had shifted the domestic incentives. The invasion had been "sold" well enough that it's believed Noriega believed that Bush wouldn't be able to honor the deal Noriega wanted and Reagan was willing to offer. The US initially needed people behind an invasion so that it could threaten an invasion in order to get concessions; but having got concessions, it found it had been backed into a corner domestically.
It's amusing, then, to read that something similar almost happened in the bargaining that originally took place in 1902 around the initiation of the canal. In this negotiation, the US played Nicaragua off against Panama; it made a number of moves that showed a public interest in and preference for a Nicaraguan project. This successfully convinced France (which controlled the canal site) that there was a danger of losing the deal to a competitor, and secured concessions. But it had also successfully convinced US legislators, meaning the votes weren't there in the Senate once the US got the deal it was looking for!
How was this solved? Partly through direct persuasion, and partly through slander*. Howard Raiffa writes:
Also, China officially ahead in wind capacity now.
* Dear lawyer friends: I use the term in a colloquial rather than a technical sense.
It's amusing, then, to read that something similar almost happened in the bargaining that originally took place in 1902 around the initiation of the canal. In this negotiation, the US played Nicaragua off against Panama; it made a number of moves that showed a public interest in and preference for a Nicaraguan project. This successfully convinced France (which controlled the canal site) that there was a danger of losing the deal to a competitor, and secured concessions. But it had also successfully convinced US legislators, meaning the votes weren't there in the Senate once the US got the deal it was looking for!
How was this solved? Partly through direct persuasion, and partly through slander*. Howard Raiffa writes:
a week before the Senate vote there still were not enough Panamanian enthusiasts. At this point, a decisive role was played by a Frenchman named Philippe Bunan-Varilla... Three days before the deciding vote, he sent each senator a pretty Nicaraguan stamp showing a railroad wharf in the foreground and, in the background, Momotombo in magnificent eruption. 'What have the Nicaraguans chosen to characterize on their coat of arms and on their postage stamps? Volcanos!' Bunan-Varilla made his point. On June 19, 1902, Panama won the Senate...
--Raiffa (1982), The Art and Science of NegotiationIf Bunan-Varilla's postage stamp maneuver actually turned the tide, then I think what it mainly demonstrates is the real lack of any deep interest group maneuvering behind this decision. If senators' positions were so weak (and their background research so shallow) that their opinions could be reversed by "Hey, did you know Nicaragua has a volcano?", it's hard to imagine that anyone much on the domestic side had cared enough to put a lot of pressure on them to choose one way or another (other than the above-mentioned political machinations).
Also, China officially ahead in wind capacity now.
* Dear lawyer friends: I use the term in a colloquial rather than a technical sense.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Today is mildly depressing...
Hooray! More corn ethanol! (/sarcasm)
Also, a Canadian couple is claiming that leaking carbon dioxide from a carbon capture and storage test project in Saskatchewan has their local pond "fizzing like soda pop." Exciting!
Also, a Canadian couple is claiming that leaking carbon dioxide from a carbon capture and storage test project in Saskatchewan has their local pond "fizzing like soda pop." Exciting!
Friday, January 21, 2011
Last Schelling, I promise
I read the last chunk of Schelling today. It's somewhat less relevant to what I'm doing, being more concerned with the conflictual end of the mixed-motives spectrum - limited war and whatnot - but I figured that given I'd already read 2/3 of the book I might as well finish up while it was fresh.
I actually think Schelling does better with this end of the spectrum. Partly this is because I find his "weakness can be good" thread of argument more compelling in this case, oddly (is it odd?). When Schelling suggests that there are "military capabilities we might prefer not to have" this seems intuitively satisfying to me. Though, note, I think it's only true when we're talking absolutes and not relatives; we might prefer not to have nukes, or not invent missile defense, but only if the Russians also don't have nukes or missile defense. I think Schelling would mostly agree with that.
However, on a deeper level, I think the general rationalist/game theory-friendly approach just suits conflict (even limited conflict) better, for psychological reasons. My intuition is that war is not in fact "a continuation of policy by other means"; I think there's actually a qualitative difference in how we think about appropriate behavior and what our expectations are when we're trying to get something by bargaining than when we're trying to get something by war, whether or not it's true that limited wars have tacit "cooperative" aspects. I think the two mindsets have entirely different sets of cognitive biases, and that the set of cognitive biases associated with conflict is much closer to the set of cognitive biases displayed by game theorists than is the set of cognitive biases associated with bargaining.
Anyway, there were some bits that I quite liked in this last chunk. For instance:
Still, even this section has a fairly high density of Dr. Strangelove-esque "solutions" proposed.
I actually think Schelling does better with this end of the spectrum. Partly this is because I find his "weakness can be good" thread of argument more compelling in this case, oddly (is it odd?). When Schelling suggests that there are "military capabilities we might prefer not to have" this seems intuitively satisfying to me. Though, note, I think it's only true when we're talking absolutes and not relatives; we might prefer not to have nukes, or not invent missile defense, but only if the Russians also don't have nukes or missile defense. I think Schelling would mostly agree with that.
However, on a deeper level, I think the general rationalist/game theory-friendly approach just suits conflict (even limited conflict) better, for psychological reasons. My intuition is that war is not in fact "a continuation of policy by other means"; I think there's actually a qualitative difference in how we think about appropriate behavior and what our expectations are when we're trying to get something by bargaining than when we're trying to get something by war, whether or not it's true that limited wars have tacit "cooperative" aspects. I think the two mindsets have entirely different sets of cognitive biases, and that the set of cognitive biases associated with conflict is much closer to the set of cognitive biases displayed by game theorists than is the set of cognitive biases associated with bargaining.
Anyway, there were some bits that I quite liked in this last chunk. For instance:
The argument of this paper leads to a definition of brinksmanship and a concept of the 'brink of war.' The brink is not, in this view, the sharp edge of a cliff where one can stand firmly, look down, and decide whether or not to plunge. The brink is a curved slope that one can stand on with some risk of slipping, the slope gets [sic] steeper and the risk of slipping greater as one moves toward the chasm. ... One does not, in brinksmanship, frighten the adversary who is roped to him by getting so close to the edge that if one decides to jump one can do so before anyone can stop him. Brinksmanship involves getting onto the slope where one may fall in spite of his own best efforts to save himself, dragging his adversary with him. Brinksmanship is thus the deliberate creation of a recognizable risk of war, a risk that one does not completely control. It is the tactic of deliberately letting the situation get somewhat out of hand, just because its being out of hand may be intolerable to the other party..." (199-200)That seems to me to accurately describe many real situations.
Still, even this section has a fairly high density of Dr. Strangelove-esque "solutions" proposed.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
And now, a message from our sponsors...
Some days just aren't dissertation days. The most academic thing I was able to get done today was go to a job talk and looong lunch with a candidate interviewing at the department. She had an interesting talk, though. She was looking at why African states intervene to do peacekeeping in other African states - when they often have their own stability problems at home, and even when there's no obvious direct security benefit to intervening in the target country. She concluded that these peacekeeping interventions occur because they elicit rewards from Western countries who otherwise might feel pressure to intervene themselves - rewards like easier aid with fewer good-governance conditions attached; or like military training and aid, which has a primary intent supporting the peacekeeping efforts, but which of course also helps leaders maintain stability and control at home... cynical, but plausible!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Solar, wind, and market takeovers
Possibly the headline of this Reuters article should have been rephrased as, "Has China already kicked all of our asses, and is there anything we can do about it at this point?" because when you've managed to overcome Germany's substantial head start in solar in, like, three years, you are not kidding around.
This is a good backgrounder for an interesting conversation I had with my advisor today, about why China is taking over in solar (two thirds of solar cell production in the global market, according to this article) while not yet (or are they? see below) administering the same ass-kicking in wind. We discussed the possibility that it's a case of suitability of the domestic market as a lead market (solar isn't actually a very well-suited technology to Germany's climate, while wind is quite well-suited to the Danish domestic market). But this article suggests it's just different subsidy structures - both Germany and China subsidize solar power pretty heavily, but Germany doesn't discriminate on country of manufacturing, while China does. This raises the question of whether there's a similar subsidy structure difference with regard to wind, China, and Denmark; and if not, why not?/if so, why different outcomes? I don't know.
However, this article suggests in fact the story is going just the same way in wind, and there's no discrepancy to account for. One of the frustrating things about these industries is they're growing and changing so fast that one year's difference in data (say, on market share) can tell a completely different story. It's hard to keep up, and dangerous to predict.
In any case, supposedly the US is considering WTO trade dispute proceedings against China over this stuff, which will be an interesting line for it to walk, given that it's also been trying to initiate significant R&D cooperation on green energy technologies with China.
By the way, why is there this big counter-wind movement based on the supposed eyesore value of wind installations? I find wind installations tend to be quite beautiful.
This is a good backgrounder for an interesting conversation I had with my advisor today, about why China is taking over in solar (two thirds of solar cell production in the global market, according to this article) while not yet (or are they? see below) administering the same ass-kicking in wind. We discussed the possibility that it's a case of suitability of the domestic market as a lead market (solar isn't actually a very well-suited technology to Germany's climate, while wind is quite well-suited to the Danish domestic market). But this article suggests it's just different subsidy structures - both Germany and China subsidize solar power pretty heavily, but Germany doesn't discriminate on country of manufacturing, while China does. This raises the question of whether there's a similar subsidy structure difference with regard to wind, China, and Denmark; and if not, why not?/if so, why different outcomes? I don't know.
However, this article suggests in fact the story is going just the same way in wind, and there's no discrepancy to account for. One of the frustrating things about these industries is they're growing and changing so fast that one year's difference in data (say, on market share) can tell a completely different story. It's hard to keep up, and dangerous to predict.
In any case, supposedly the US is considering WTO trade dispute proceedings against China over this stuff, which will be an interesting line for it to walk, given that it's also been trying to initiate significant R&D cooperation on green energy technologies with China.
By the way, why is there this big counter-wind movement based on the supposed eyesore value of wind installations? I find wind installations tend to be quite beautiful.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
A bit more Schelling: irrationality!
One possible exception to my "weakness is not as useful as Schelling would like us to believe" rant centers on irrationality. There is a lot of literature out there that suggests that it's actually useful for most states to appear a bit irrational in many situations. Not North Korea irrational, mind you. Just enough for specific purposes. The classic case I had to teach in a class on war a couple of semesters back is nuclear deterrence: under a lot of definitions of rationality, it's pretty much never rational to launch a nuke - yet for nuclear deterrence to work, states have to believe other states really will launch that nuke even though it's not rational. A little bit of (perceived) irrationality is key. Yet another case where an apparent weakness is useful!
I'm unconvinced of this, however. I don't think it's actually irrationality that's at issue in these cases. I think what's actually in states' best interests is to convince other states that their preferences deviate somewhat from an ideal model of "normal" preferences, such that it might be in their best interests, as they define them, to do something that would be irrational under a more standard or ideal preference set.
Possibly this seems like an overly fine distinction, but I think it's important. Convincing other states that you're irrational means convincing them that you might do things even though you know they're not in your best interests, and even though we all know they're not in your best interests: in other words, that you're fundamentally unpredictable and crazy. When faced with an unpredictable and crazy partner, bargaining and cooperation become difficult or impossible. Nobody's making trade deals with North Korea.
But convincing other states that you have a slightly unexpected set of preferences doesn't imply that you can't be predicted or will do things you know aren't in your best interests. It just means, basically, that other states need to understand what you believe your best interests are in order in order to predict how you'll behave - and in turn, that they probably have to pay attention to what you're saying your preferences are in order to understand this. That gives you the leverage to shape their expectations of your behavior, and hence, how they behave toward you. But it doesn't suggest you can't be predicted or cooperated with productively. It just gives you a bit more leverage over the set of expectations under which cooperation happens.
I'm unconvinced of this, however. I don't think it's actually irrationality that's at issue in these cases. I think what's actually in states' best interests is to convince other states that their preferences deviate somewhat from an ideal model of "normal" preferences, such that it might be in their best interests, as they define them, to do something that would be irrational under a more standard or ideal preference set.
Possibly this seems like an overly fine distinction, but I think it's important. Convincing other states that you're irrational means convincing them that you might do things even though you know they're not in your best interests, and even though we all know they're not in your best interests: in other words, that you're fundamentally unpredictable and crazy. When faced with an unpredictable and crazy partner, bargaining and cooperation become difficult or impossible. Nobody's making trade deals with North Korea.
But convincing other states that you have a slightly unexpected set of preferences doesn't imply that you can't be predicted or will do things you know aren't in your best interests. It just means, basically, that other states need to understand what you believe your best interests are in order in order to predict how you'll behave - and in turn, that they probably have to pay attention to what you're saying your preferences are in order to understand this. That gives you the leverage to shape their expectations of your behavior, and hence, how they behave toward you. But it doesn't suggest you can't be predicted or cooperated with productively. It just gives you a bit more leverage over the set of expectations under which cooperation happens.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Critiquing the value of weakness
I'm catching on Thomas Schelling. I'm supposed to know Schelling well already, because his Strategy of Conflict (1960) is one of the seminal texts on bargaining and the application of power and influence; but in practice, I don't know him as well as I should and today I'm fixing that.
The thing about Schelling is that he's not as clever as he thinks he is.
The basic message of Strategy of Conflict is that weakness can be useful. Being constrained in various ways can strengthen one's position. An abstract example: let's say I want to sell a house and you want to buy one. This is an abstract example, so I'm the only seller in town and you're the only buyer; we don't have to consider competition. We both know that the other will probably take a range of possible prices, say from roughly $94,000 to roughly $108,000. If we negotiate, there's a good chance we'll settle on a price somewhere in the middle - maybe at $100,000 because it's a nice round number. But let's say you're leaving on a trip to Namibia tomorrow, where you won't be accessible, even by cell or email, for the next year. Just before you leave, you look at my house, decide you'd like to buy it, and send me an email that says you're willing to buy the house at $95,000. If I want to take your offer, I can settle with your lawyer, who can sign for you, but who's not empowered to negotiate price on your behalf. I'll take the offer, because it's in my range of acceptable offers, and I know it's a choice between taking the offer or not selling the house for (at best) a year. Your bargaining position improved because you lost the ability to communicate, and hence to be bargained with.
Schelling LOVES this kind of stuff, and that's pretty much what the book is about. In fact, Schelling defines strategy as follows: "A strategic move is one that influences the other person's choice, in a manner favorable to one's self, by affecting the other person's expectations on how one's self will behave. One constrains the partner's choice by constraining one's own behavior." (160)
But how to apply this to the real world? Consider the types of examples Schelling comes up with when he discusses the kind of behavior his theoretical findings might lead us to engage in in real problems (bear in mind it was written during the Cold War):
1) We might agree to an exchange of kindergarteners with Russia; all US 5-year-olds would spend their 5th year in Russia, while all Russian 5-year-olds spend their 5th year in the US. Thus, both countries constrain themselves; neither can launch a nuclear attack without killing it's own 5-year-olds.
2) We might agree with the Russians to remove, in parallel, any defensive weaponry - basically the same logic as the child exchange, except that the whole population of each country becomes a hostage.
3) "There was a time, shortly after the first atomic bomb was exploded, when there was some journalistic speculation about whether the earth's atmosphere had a limited tolerance to nuclear fission; the idea was bruited about that a mighty chain reaction might destroy the earth's atmosphere when some critical number of bombs had already been exploded. Some proposed that, if this were true and if we could calculate with accuracy that critical level of tolerance, we might neutralize atomic weapons for all time by a deliberate program of openly and dramatically exploding n - 1 bombs." (138) Hence constraining our options - removing the middle options between "no nuclear explosions" and "total destruction".
4) "When the outcome depends on coordination, the timely destruction of communication may be a winning tactic. When a man and his wife are arguing by telephone over where to meet for dinner, the argument is one by the wife if she simply announces where she is going and hangs up."
I mean, I ask you! Does a single one of these strike you as a good idea? Of course not. There are certainly specific situations in which a specific weakness is useful - but there are, on average, more situations where not having the weakness is more useful. Unless we can turn the weakness off and on at will, we're likely to weigh the probabilities and decide that on average, we're better off not having the weakness. And if we can turn it off and on at will, it's not really a weakness - and our bargaining partner is likely to realize this in fairly short order, with unpleasant consequences. The wife may get her husband to show up at the restaurant she wants by using that tactic once - but the consequences aren't likely to be pleasant.
Thus, Schelling's book in the real world is, at best, a handbook of how you might turn existing weaknesses you can't escape to advantage. North Korea may in practice derive some advantage from appearing crazy (a weakness that allows it to escape many forms of bargaining and succeed with unilateral moves it otherwise might not be able to get away with). But it doesn't act crazy because it was a powerful state that decided that was the best strategic option overall. It acts crazy either because a) it is crazy, or b) because it is a weak state that can't get what it wants any other way than by exploiting one of its apparent weaknesses. (Probably a bit of both.)
The thing about Schelling is that he's not as clever as he thinks he is.
The basic message of Strategy of Conflict is that weakness can be useful. Being constrained in various ways can strengthen one's position. An abstract example: let's say I want to sell a house and you want to buy one. This is an abstract example, so I'm the only seller in town and you're the only buyer; we don't have to consider competition. We both know that the other will probably take a range of possible prices, say from roughly $94,000 to roughly $108,000. If we negotiate, there's a good chance we'll settle on a price somewhere in the middle - maybe at $100,000 because it's a nice round number. But let's say you're leaving on a trip to Namibia tomorrow, where you won't be accessible, even by cell or email, for the next year. Just before you leave, you look at my house, decide you'd like to buy it, and send me an email that says you're willing to buy the house at $95,000. If I want to take your offer, I can settle with your lawyer, who can sign for you, but who's not empowered to negotiate price on your behalf. I'll take the offer, because it's in my range of acceptable offers, and I know it's a choice between taking the offer or not selling the house for (at best) a year. Your bargaining position improved because you lost the ability to communicate, and hence to be bargained with.
Schelling LOVES this kind of stuff, and that's pretty much what the book is about. In fact, Schelling defines strategy as follows: "A strategic move is one that influences the other person's choice, in a manner favorable to one's self, by affecting the other person's expectations on how one's self will behave. One constrains the partner's choice by constraining one's own behavior." (160)
But how to apply this to the real world? Consider the types of examples Schelling comes up with when he discusses the kind of behavior his theoretical findings might lead us to engage in in real problems (bear in mind it was written during the Cold War):
1) We might agree to an exchange of kindergarteners with Russia; all US 5-year-olds would spend their 5th year in Russia, while all Russian 5-year-olds spend their 5th year in the US. Thus, both countries constrain themselves; neither can launch a nuclear attack without killing it's own 5-year-olds.
2) We might agree with the Russians to remove, in parallel, any defensive weaponry - basically the same logic as the child exchange, except that the whole population of each country becomes a hostage.
3) "There was a time, shortly after the first atomic bomb was exploded, when there was some journalistic speculation about whether the earth's atmosphere had a limited tolerance to nuclear fission; the idea was bruited about that a mighty chain reaction might destroy the earth's atmosphere when some critical number of bombs had already been exploded. Some proposed that, if this were true and if we could calculate with accuracy that critical level of tolerance, we might neutralize atomic weapons for all time by a deliberate program of openly and dramatically exploding n - 1 bombs." (138) Hence constraining our options - removing the middle options between "no nuclear explosions" and "total destruction".
4) "When the outcome depends on coordination, the timely destruction of communication may be a winning tactic. When a man and his wife are arguing by telephone over where to meet for dinner, the argument is one by the wife if she simply announces where she is going and hangs up."
I mean, I ask you! Does a single one of these strike you as a good idea? Of course not. There are certainly specific situations in which a specific weakness is useful - but there are, on average, more situations where not having the weakness is more useful. Unless we can turn the weakness off and on at will, we're likely to weigh the probabilities and decide that on average, we're better off not having the weakness. And if we can turn it off and on at will, it's not really a weakness - and our bargaining partner is likely to realize this in fairly short order, with unpleasant consequences. The wife may get her husband to show up at the restaurant she wants by using that tactic once - but the consequences aren't likely to be pleasant.
Thus, Schelling's book in the real world is, at best, a handbook of how you might turn existing weaknesses you can't escape to advantage. North Korea may in practice derive some advantage from appearing crazy (a weakness that allows it to escape many forms of bargaining and succeed with unilateral moves it otherwise might not be able to get away with). But it doesn't act crazy because it was a powerful state that decided that was the best strategic option overall. It acts crazy either because a) it is crazy, or b) because it is a weak state that can't get what it wants any other way than by exploiting one of its apparent weaknesses. (Probably a bit of both.)
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