{"title":"'We Haven’t Got But One More Day': The Cuban Missile Crisis as a Dynamic Chicken Game","authors":"A. Dixit, David McAdams, Susan Skeath","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3406265","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Brinkmanship is a “threat that leaves something to chance” – creating a risk of catastrophe that is high enough to deter the adversary but low enough to be acceptable to oneself. The Cuban missile crisis is offered as a classic example. We argue that in that crisis both sides lost control over the risk. We build a dynamic model of a chicken game, and use parameters based on historical narrative studies. We find that over the thirteen days of the crisis, the probability of a nuclear war got as high as 60%.","PeriodicalId":393761,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Other Game Theory & Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2019-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ERN: Other Game Theory & Bargaining Theory (Topic)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3406265","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
Brinkmanship is a “threat that leaves something to chance” – creating a risk of catastrophe that is high enough to deter the adversary but low enough to be acceptable to oneself. The Cuban missile crisis is offered as a classic example. We argue that in that crisis both sides lost control over the risk. We build a dynamic model of a chicken game, and use parameters based on historical narrative studies. We find that over the thirteen days of the crisis, the probability of a nuclear war got as high as 60%.