March 9, 2006
Game Theory: The Ball is Rolling....
When a friend of mine felicitated me over a recent "energy geopolitics" article, I frankly admitted that I haven't read real news for months, perhaps a year.
"I use game theory to forecast news," and would be ready with an analyses once theory turn to facts. Just browse the headlines, get the key words, and then the key articles. Presto. Human nature is predictable and so is international relations. The only thing you can't predict is a train collission or a plane crash somewhere.
"I think that is risky," came the reply from Deepak Sunny Veliath. It wasn't a naive reply; he knew me well enough. Plus, this is the only guy against whom I suffered a stalemate during a debate that rattled buildings along Valmiki Nagar, Chennai, a few days after the city had to endure the tsunami. Call it a double whammy for the residents there.
Anyway, after publishing my piece on The Brinkmanship of Energy Geopolitics, I wasn't surprised to read this afternoon that North Korea test-fired two missiles. This is an incredibly, predictable and stupid move that would rattle Russia into taking extra precautions. And not only Russia, but Japan and South Korea as well. A loose alliance might form here.
Pyongyang shocked Tokyo and other nations when it test-fired a ballistic missile over northern Japan in 1998.
In my article, I had mentioned North Korea as a nation hoeplessly enslaved to China, and would be used as a proxy to create tensions in Northwest Asia once Beijing's oil supply from the Persian Gulf gets threatened. A referral to the UN Security Council over Tehran's uranium enrichment program is only hours away, and once that take place, expect a series of game theory manoeuvres. China is a clear loser.
Guess what? The next news item was headlined "US blasts China, Iran in annual human rights report." That Beijing perpetrates gross human rights violations and is a patron guardian of savages and dictators is undeniable. This is also the world's top proliferator of nuclear weapons and missile technologies, and it is a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council. In other words, it has the power to impose its dictates on democracies. But to place Iran in the same mould is stretching facts a little too far. When it comes to minority persecution, the Turks, Pakistanis, Saudis, Egyptians etc have worse records. If the Occupied Territories are factored in, the Israelis can join that list. Americans have been slain in Pakistani churches. An American diplomat was killed just before Bush visited Islamabad. Have you heard of such bombings in Iran frequently?
Iran is still a democracy, however flawed. Mahmoud Ahmednijad is bad news, true, but tell me how many national leaders can command genuine respect or should be left out of the "bad news" list? And what the hell is Cuba doing in that list? This is Washington's achilles heel and it should cease that Cuba bogey garbage before it loses more credibility. The White House is making some right moves in deliberately engaging democracies like India, and rebuffing dictatorships at the same time. Only time will tell how that story will end. White House could of course use the "Opposition in the Congress" to negate the India deal, but I'd give Bush the benefit of doubt this time. The US really needs strategic partnerships among nations that have withstood the test of time.
Cuba - where democracy is missing - can also be engaged for the better. Some engagements lead to a quid pro quo; others like China just use rapproachement to sell arms to Mugabe, Khartoum, Kim Jong-il and the whos who of lunatics who can fire missiles but can't tolerate a single criticism from their own citizens.
Among the most far-fetched game theory scenarios I worked out: EU using the Nato Trojan Horse - in the event hostilities in the Middle east - to annihilate the US Army, which, currently numbers something like 140,000 in Iraq. Cause can be attributed to an Iranian or an accidental Israeli nuke. The other scenarios are conventional, graduated types of escalation.
Beware the Ides of March, Mr Bush. Downing Street can play it both ways.
Mathew Maavak
Jakarta, March 9, 2006
1.50pm.