Reddit reviews The Strategy of Conflict: With a New Preface by the Author

Cool to see the 500 warhead scenario focused on countervalue targets while more warheads increases the targeting of counterforce targets. Basically, if you have only a few warheads, they need to be big and focus on deterrence. If you have many, they can be smaller and more targeted towards crippling your opponent's military.

People under-appreciate how much game theory was derived from the cold war with great books like The Strategy of Conflict.

Your scenario assumes there is only one ransomer and one ransomee in the world. This can make for a good toy problem, but we should be clear that we're diverging from the real world here.

This is one of many scenarios where it is to your advantage for your opponent to believe that there are circumstances in which you will act against your own (apparent) self-interest. The best thing you can do to prevent kidnapping (in this scenario) is to credibly and publicly assert that you will never pay a random.

If you're a kidnapper and you anticipate people attempting this strategy, you can publicly and credibly delcare that you'll kidnap people regardless. (This might be tricky, as kidnappers historically aren't super credible people).

The key is to be (1) credible and (2) first. Whoever makes the first credible precommitment wins.

Similarly: there is a game called "Chicken", where two drivers careen towards each other at high speed; whoever swerves first loses. The dominant strategy...

(think about it for at least 30 seconds)

(it hasn't been 30 seconds yet)

(keep thinking)

(do you have an answer?)

(take a second to write it down or say it out loud)

[solution](#s "...is to throw your steering wheel out the window before the game starts, such that your opponent knows for a fact that you can't swerve.")

Another, similar demonstration of the power of precommitment is demonstrated here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qjK3TWZE8. If you want to skip the game show fluff: It's a prisoners dilemma and things get fun around 2:40.

tldr: You can use your opponent's model of you as a weapon against them.

Recommended reading: http://www.amazon.com/The-Strategy-Conflict-Thomas-Schelling/dp/0674840313

Justice is a way to avoid the tragic equilibrium in the prisoner's dilemmas we all face every day. A college sophomore would say that if someone wrongs you, it is irrational to seek revenge, because even if it hurts the one who wronged you it costs you something as well. However, if someone thinking about wronging you knows you will "irrationally" seek revenge, they're less likely to wrong you.

Being known as someone with a strong commitment to justice is a good way to accomplish this.

The above is a very short overview; Thomas Schelling got a Nobel Prize for related theory, and authored a very readable book on the subject; The Strategy of Conflict.

The Strategy of Conflict by Tom Schelling - very little math. It's a collection of essays rather than a unified tome.

A Course in Game Theory by Osborne and Rubenstein. Much more rigorous (so more Math). It might be too much for you - "I'm good at math" can mean many things.

Neither is purely economics

There is!

Specifically, and Wikipedia will back me up on this, von Moltke insisted that Germany's Schlieffen Plan, which called for simultaneous war against France and Russia, would have to proceed unaltered, despite last-minute attempts by England to guarantee French neutrality. The notion was that troops were already on the move with pre-set orders, and with the speed of communication and transport abilities, no last-minute alteration could be managed.

(It strikes me that unalterable mobilization in that fashion is an interesting example of pre-committal and its ramifications: consider Thomas Schelling's book for more on game theory in conflict.)

Also, if you want a whimsical and sort of weird take on Kaiser Wilhelm II, Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August -- haha, just kidding, though that book is great -- The Zimmerman Telegram, and specifically its second chapter (I think), details some of Wilhelm's quirks and odd theories on how the war would or could be won. They're pretty interesting. But the book is hard to come by anywhere except online or in a vintage bookstore.

I think you are more talking about resource/time management; for this, I cannot offer much help.

But if you are interested in strategy, I can recommend two books:

The Art of Strategy - it is a 'pop science' introduction to strategy. Not that deep, but very easy to read.

Then, if you feel you need to learn from the Masters, go for the big guns:
The strategy of Conflict - it is not an easy read, but some of Thomas Schelling's insights will blow your mind. Use with cautions, though; some of the strategies described backfired horribly during the Vietnam war (Schelling was one of the advisors at the RAND corporation at the time). Just thought I should warn you, before you blow up your life/relationships in an exercise of strategic brinkmanship: it is indeed a dangerous book.