Coherent Cooperative Games and the Middle East Conflict
A Framework for Peace — By Pre-emption of Peace
None can argue the immediate requirement for peace in the Middle East.
It is not a tomorrow problem or a next-month requirement, or a next-year requirement, or even an if-then requirement. It is simply an immediate requirement.
The alternative is thousands, tens or thousands, millions or even global casualties with the advent of World War III.
The trouble, the way I see it is that we have ample frameworks, under game theory, for war, but scant frameworks for peace. At least not those that are universally known and appreciated.
I propose that Coherent Cooperative Games (CCGs), with the addition of what I call Differential Interpretation Games (DIGs), provide the framework that at least describes what peace looks like, with the allowing for miscommunication (a DIG), and that is what is missing in the conflict and likely the very cause of conflict in the first place.
Coherent Cooperative Games, as I describe them, are games where:
“If you play, there is only one type of play or move which is that on each move you play the other player wins. The rules of the game are open and coherently known to each player. Play tokens are defined by the rules and may be the rules themselves.”
Now, who, in their right mind, would pre-emptively provide the tools, resources, intel and effective ammunition such their enemy win?
Well, it depends what those tools, resources, intel and effective ammunition are, and if they are the tools, resources, intel and ammunition that sets up mutual players such that if they play, you win, then the very definition of tools, resources, intel and ammunition change. The bullets of love and compassion are far more powerful and effective than those that kill, the bombs of shared knowledge and commerce are far more powerful than those that destroy. The tools of effective communication and issue resolution are easily more rewarding than those that dismantle, manipulate and malign.
Resources that empower those that would otherwise call of themselves an enemy a potential ally or friend or cohabitor of space, far more powerful than resources that subjugate. Intel that enlightens easily more beneficial than that which is used for subterfuge.
It is a little too primitive to perceive of a Coherent Cooperative Game as altruism, it just makes sense. In the first article I wrote on Coherent Cooperative Games I spoke of a concept of Heaven where each person unable to feed themselves, their forearms half the length of their upper arm and people unable to feed themselves (their hands no reaching their face) so they feed each other. A concept I had heard earlier in life and paints a picture of what I see most people perceiving of a type of heaven.
Altruism is not a Coherent Cooperative Game, because it isn’t acknowledged as a game with rules. A CCG is very clear, if you play, you play such that the other player wins.
That’s a pretty big IF.
Because it relies on all other people playing…playing the same game and with the same sense of coherent cooperation.
Altruism is more along the lines of active-passivity or an oxymoron.
“I’ll do this, this and this for you, and you need not pay me back”.
A multiplayer Coherent Cooperative Game only takes on form if all players play such the other player wins.
So what does that mean?
Well, it means that the Israeli Prime Minister saying “If you strike us, we will strike you” (the classic Tit-For-Tat strategy of the Cold War era), is far from saying:
“Here are our visions of peace, what are yours? Let’s set up a Coherent Cooperative Game and work towards that Nash Equilibrium where mutual support can be maintained indefinitely until such time as a DIG is played and some form of digression has taken place.
Which is all to say:
“We have the language of war (Tit-For-Tat), but we do not have the suitable language for peace (A Coherent Cooperative Games) and that allows for disagreements (Differential Interpretation Games)”
A clear example is that on effectively winning World War II, the USA poured money into Japan to rebuild its economy. The United Nations was set up, which, at least in vision, was to establish a global Coherent Cooperative Game, where the rules of International Law were set up with the premise that if you play (as a member State) you play by the rules and such that other players win. The mandate was to promote international peace and effective and mutually beneficial international commerce in the absence of Differential Interpretation Games (wars).
So, peace in the Middle East will not come about by Tit-for-Tat, which assumes a Differential Interpretation Game, which is not the main game. Even if we assume Tit-for-Tat as being “If you stroke my back, I’ll stroke yours”, rather than “If you strike me, I’ll strike you”, we have not formed the language of peace, a Coherent Cooperative Game and with the expectation that if you play you play such that the other player wins. Far better that we take the view, and promote the accompanying language, that peace has to be the aim of the end-game rather than taking it as a foregone conclusion.
How ludicrous to fight a war, with hundreds, thousands, millions dead, and call it as if its end game is peace, while all the while speaking up the language of war, Tit-for-Tat.
Coherent Cooperative Games are necessary, not for the machinations of war, or for those that profit from it, but for those who wish it and need peace, and even if it is they who speak out and tackle those who profit from war with a Differential Interpretation Game that says, “You don’t understand…we don’t want your war, our interpretation is that Coherent Cooperative Games make sense, and you have it all wrong, please allow us to share with you a grander vision”.
This will only come about if the language of war, Tit-for-Tat, is substituted with language that has no implication of hitting in it, Coherent Cooperative Games.
Thank you for reading. If you find this article useful, please share it with your friends and family, colleagues and associates to that the language of peace takes precedent over the language of war. Not in altruism, not in naive ignorance, but in painting a new vision which puts those who promote war as playing a Differential Interpretation Game and not quite getting the bigger picture.
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Footnotes:
Mathematical, Logical and Game Theorists who look for precision and grounding may look at this article for that grounding: Formalism for Game-Theoretic Approach to Formal Logic | by Victor Morgante | Medium
Similarly: Formalism for Game-Theoretic Approach to Law | by Victor Morgante | Aug, 2024 | Medium
The introductions to Coherent Cooperative Games:
Coherent Cooperative Games. As I describe them… | by Victor Morgante | Medium
Coherent Cooperative Games — Described | by Victor Morgante | Oct, 2024 | Medium
