obama: the retaliator

Having just discussed Obama's political method - his distinctive combination of idealism and ruthless pragmatism - I was reminded of something I first read about in one of my favourite books.

In the early 1970s a geneticist called John Maynard-Smith invented the Hawk-Dove game to try and shed light on why animals don't fight each other to death at every chance they get, in an attempt to maximise their own personal gain. In his game - actually a mathematical model but we needn't go into that - Hawk is always up for a fight. He easily beats Dove. But he gets badly wounded in a fight with another Hawk. Dove, which is programmed to cooperate, reaps benefits when it meets another Dove. But when it meets a Hawk it gets killed. In the short term, the Hawk strategy is the most rational - and evolutionarily successful - strategy. But when the game is played over and again, the Dove starts to do better. A third strategy, called Retaliator, proves best of all. Retaliator is a Dove - until it meets a Hawk, at which point it turns into a Hawk too.

A few years later, Maynard-Smith's model was turned into a computer program. A political scientist called Robert Axelrod (no relation, I don't think) hosted a contest in which people could submit computer programs with various survival strategies, to see which would prevail. To the surprise of pretty much everyone, it was the "nicest" and simplest program that won, hands down. The victor - named "Tit-for-tat" - was programmed to begin by cooperating, and then to do whatever the other guy did last time, even if that was attack (ringing bells?). In other words it was a Retaliator. Axelrod explained its success in his book on cooperation:

What accounts for Tit-for-Tat's robust success is its combination of being nice, retaliatory, forgiving and clear. Its niceness prevents it from getting into unnecessary trouble. Its retaliation discourages the other side from persisting whenever defection is tried. Its forgiveness helps restore mutual cooperation.  And its clarity makes it intelligible to the other player, thereby eliciting long-term cooperation.

It is too early to make a definitive assessment of this president's political methodology, at home or abroad. But I suspect, in retrospect, we will see that it looks very much like this.

Comments

[Dave Otto]

'd like to suggest that Cybernetics offers a superior model to the Hawk-Dove game theory model for understanding Obama.

Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety: "The larger the variety of actions available to a control system, the larger the variety of perturbations it is able to compensate." That can be fairly translated as; "in a system with multiple players the player with the most flexibility has the most power"
Because he's non-idelogical and a 'ruthless pragmatist' Obama will always be the most flexible guy in the room. Especially when you consider the narrow thinking of his opposition. However, politics ain't bean-bag. To get my vote 2012 I'll need to see Obama take a few stands, ala the Hawk.

[ejoch]

Isn't all this a bit premature? Obama ran a very impressive election campaign, no-one can deny that. But, um, what has he done since? His handling of the Iranian crisis is showing the 'ruthless pragmatism', if that's what it is, up rather badly.
I don't know, maybe I'm just tired of endless hagiographic articles about Obama. Perhaps not just me-
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24180.html
and yes, I agree with the previous poster, taking a few stands (against someone other than US allies) wouldn't be a bad start.

[Marbury]

Ejoch, you say premature, I say too early. But I thought it was an interesting analogy nonetheless based on what we've seen so far. Now let's see how it plays out...And I can promise, no hagiography here.

[peter]

Something worth saying here: Robert Axelrod's research in game theory was motivated in large part by a belief that an alternative was needed to the Mutually-Assured Destruction policies of the Cold War, policies associated with the hawks of the US military-industrial complex over several decades -- people like Douglas MacArthur, Curtis LeMay and Henry Kissinger. It's nicely ironic if Young Barry is now using the successful policies generated by Axelrod's Prisoners' Dilemma in the very same foreign policy arena that motivated Axelrod in the first place, and against some of the same macho, wing-nut battiness that the Republican right continues to think of as reasoned policy.

As Obama has said repeatedly, the macho option DECREASES the West's safety and security, and this point bears repeating every time the wingnuts, such as John McCain, open their mouths. The best recruiting agent for Al-Qaeda these last 6 years has been the US military presence in Iraq. You don't have be a marxist community organizer from the Chicago South Side to believe this. Former Conservative Chancellor Ken Clarke made the same argument in his speech to the House of Commons arguing against the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

[propecia online]

But to the point: it is my belief that most women are inherently
somewhat more suspicious and less trusting than are most men.

I know to a near certainty that if I were to go over to my husband and
say "Oh, sweetie," and smile, he would think to himself "She loves
me!"

[georgia insurance company]

Liability insurance pays for bodily injury and property damage if you are at fault in an accident.

[James]

Dilemma in the very same foreign policy arena that motivated Axelrod in the first place, and against some of the same macho, wing-nut battiness that the Republican right continues to think of as reasoned policy.