Nuclear Deterrence Theory and the Strategy of Limited Retaliation as a Game of Sequential Bargaining with Incomplete Information

这个项目的目的是在博弈论框架内分析核威慑和有限报复的战略方面。将特别强调审查不完整资料的影响。现有的大多数关于威慑理论的正式工作都集中在某种形式的核边缘政策上。在一场核边缘政策危机中，一个国家试图通过操纵危机以一场无限制的、全面的核交换结束的风险来保护自己的利益。这场危机是一场承担风险的竞争，每个国家都试图说服对手，风险太高，应该退让。然而，还有另一种不基于边缘政策和操纵无限核攻击风险的威慑方法。在这种方法中，一个国家试图通过施加有限数量的惩罚来保护自己的利益，以便使未来造成更大损害的威胁变得可信。因此，在危机期间，一个国家试图让未来惩罚的威胁足够可信，从而让对手让步。基于有限报复的第二种方法在正式文献中很少受到关注。该项目的主要目标是将威慑理论的形式分析扩展到有限报复战略的研究。这项研究很重要，因为它将在一定程度上阐明有限的核选择与危机升级为战争的可能性之间的关系。增加有限选项的数量是否会使核战争变得更“可想象”，从而通过增加战争的可能性来降低危机稳定性？或者，增加选项的数量是否会提高一国报复性威胁的可信度，加强威慑，从而增加危机稳定性？

The purpose of this project is to analyze the strategic aspects of nuclear deterrence and limited retaliation within a game-theoretic framework. Special emphasis will be given to examining the effects of incomplete information. Most existing formal work on deterrence theory focuses on some form of nuclear brinkmanship. In a nuclear brinkmanship crisis, a state attempts to protect its interests by manipulating the risk that the crisis will end in an unlimited, all-out, nuclear exchange. The crisis is a competition in taking risks in which each state tries to convince its adversary that the risk is too high and that it should back down. There is, however, another approach to deterrence that is not based on brinkmanship and manipulating the risk of an unlimited nuclear attack. In this approach, a state attempts to protect its interests by inflicting a limited amount of punishment in order to make the threat to inflict more damage in the future credible. During a crisis, then, a state tries to make the threat of future punishment sufficiently credible that its adversary backs down. This second approach, based on limited retaliation, has received little attention in the formal literature. The primary goal of this project is to extend the formal analysis of deterrence theory to the study of the strategy of limited retaliation. This research is important because it will shed some light on the issue of the relation between limited nuclear options and the likelihood that a crisis will escalate into a war. Does increasing the number of limited options make a nuclear war more "thinkable" and, thus, reduce crisis stability by making war more likely? Or, does increasing the number of options enhance the credibility of a state's retaliatory threats, strengthen deterrence and, therefore, increase crisis stability?