Game theory on Colbert Report – mutually assured destruction

I get a kick out of the edgy comedy on The Colbert Report. It’s amazing how Stephen Colbert makes a mockery of opposing ideas through caricature and showmanship.

Last week Colbert was playfully discussing nuclear arms. He was interviewing Joseph Cirincione, a representative of a nuclear disarmament lobby, the Ploughshares Fund. Colbert played devil’s advocate and supported the idea of mutually assured destruction.

The clip is embedded on this site, or you can see it at Colbertnation.com.

The clip gets interesting at about the 2:25 mark, and continue reading for my comments on the clip:

Trouble viewing clip? Try visiting Better know a lobby – Plougshares Fund at Colbertnation.com

Relevant clip section

[around 2:25, my transcription]

Colbert: How many times can we destroy the world over right now?

Cirincione: We have 23,000 nuclear weapons. It takes about 100 weapons to blow up the world, so several thousand times.

Colbert: Okay, let’s get it down to only being able to do it world once. Anything after that, you’re just being greedy.

Cirincione: I will take that deal.

Colbert: Good, at least we agree on one thing. To destroy the world once.

Cirincione: We don’t even need that. Why, obviously. Why would you want to have an arsenal that could destroy the planet?

Colbert: In case someone else wants to do it first. Maybe someone else we don’t know has developed a bomb to destroy the world. And we say don’t do that or else we will do it. See?

Cirincione: That is the logic of the Cold War. And it was an insane logic.

Colbert: It’s not insane logic. Let’s say you want to kill me. You have a gun. I have a gun. Now, I can point my gun at you. That’s mutually assured destruction.

Cirincione: That is correct.

Colbert: Now you point a gun at me, I point my gun at my own head. I take away your motivation to kill me.

Cirincione: The current course we are on is analogous to that.

Colbert: I don’t know what analogous means. But you’re saying I’m right?

A few of my comments

There are several interesting points raised in the comedic discussion. How is it possible that we have 23,000 nuclear weapons? What could be the logic of the escalation?

Some have suggested the logic can be understood by the analogous dollar auction game. In this game, to recap, a dollar is auctioned off to a group of people. The game proceeds by steadily increasing bids, first a few cents, and so on. The dollar is awarded to the highest bidder for the prevailing bid. The twist is that the second-place bidder must also pay, but gets nothing in return. This small rule change turns a simple, sensible game into an absolutely insane one. What happens is that at each step the losing bidder finds it rational to bid higher, and so the auction continues mercilessly to higher amounts. Professors commonly do this experiment in class to raise $5 to $10. The game only ends when someone has the decency to stop the pissing contest.

And perhaps so it is with nuclear escalation. At each step, there is a “sensible” reaction to enemy escalation which results in further escalation. Incidentally, this was discussed in William Poundstone’s book “The Prisoner’s Dilemma,” an excerpt can be read here.

Colbert also discusses the strategy of mutually assured destruction. I have discussed this concept thoroughly before, likening the situation to a gossip war. What I will say here is that peace can be shown to be an equilibrium outcome. The other outcome is world annihilation. But there is a reason peace is preferred over war, and this is often referenced in analyzing the actions of Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis. I’ll end by on the note that if you would like to read about the game theory in detail, check out my post on mutually assured destruction.