Thomas Schelling gets his due from Sweden — but not from Slate

My favorite class to teach in recent years has been Classics in International Relations Theory. This is a great books course, starting with Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War and ending with Thomas Schelling’s Strategy of Conflict. The reason this is my favorite course is the effect it has on the grad students, who consume a very steady diet of literature that is supposed to be “cutting edge.” They are therefore shocked to discover that the modern version of democratic peace theory bears little relationship to Kant?s original formulation, for example. However, they are always stunned to learn that whole careers in international relations have been built out of codifying a few sentences in Schelling. [Oh yeah, and you’re not guilty of this?–ed. I’ll plead not guilty on Schelling, but nolo contendre with regard to another Nobel-worthy economist.] So it’s wonderful news to read that Schelling has co-won (with Robert Aumann) The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel “for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis.” Kieran Healy has a good post up detailing the relative contributions of Schelling and Aumann. Tyler Cowen has a lovely post up (one of many) about his old Ph.D. advisor. In Slate, Fred Kaplan tries to throw some cold water on Schelling’s Nobel, pointing out:

Today’s papers note his ingenious applications of “game theory” to labor negotiations, business transactions, and arms-control agreements. But what they don’t note?what is little-known in general?is the crucial role he played in formulating the strategies of “controlled escalation” and “punitive bombing” that plunged our country into the war in Vietnam. This dark side of Tom Schelling is also the dark side of social science?the brash assumption that neat theories not only reflect the real world but can change it as well, and in ways that can be precisely measured. And it’s a legacy that can be detected all too clearly in our current imbroglio in Iraq.

Alas, Kaplan commits the very sin he accuses Schelling of making — providing an overly neat theory of how Schelling contributed to U.S. policy in Vietnam. Kaplan’s own description of Schelling’s role in Vietnam contradicts his claim:

[Assistant Secretary of Defense John] McNaughton came to see [Schelling]. He outlined the administration’s interest in escalating the conflict in order to intimidate the North Vietnamese. Air power seemed the logical instrument, but what sort of bombing campaign did Schelling think would best ensure that the North would pick up on the signals and respond accordingly? More broadly, what should the United States want the North to do or stop doing; how would bombing convince them to obey; how would we know that they had obeyed; and how could we ensure that they wouldn’t simply resume after the bombing had ceased? Schelling and McNaughton pondered the problem for more than an hour. In the end, they failed to come up with a single plausible answer to these most basic questions. So assured when writing about sending signals with force and inflicting pain to make an opponent behave, Tom Schelling, when faced with a real-life war, was stumped. He did leave McNaughton with one piece of advice: Whatever kind of bombing campaign you end up launching, it shouldn’t last more than three weeks. It will either succeed by then?or it will never succeed. The bombing campaign?called Operation Rolling Thunder?commenced on March 2, 1965. It didn’t alter the behavior of the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong in the slightest. Either they didn’t read the signals?or the signals had no effect.

In this description, there’s not a whole hell of a lot of brashness — indeed, Schelling’s recommendation was not to escalate Rolling Thunder if the initial bombing didn’t work. In Kaplan’s passage, Schelling appears to be acutely aware of the difficulties of measurement in applying his theory of compellence to Vietnam. He made a recommendation, but with none of the hubris Kaplan associates with social science (Kaplan also elides Schelling’s leadership in a subsequent attempt to convince then-NSC adviser Henry Kissinger to withdraw from Vietnam in the early days of the Nixon administration). Kaplan’s essay contains a grain of truth about the dangers of social science. Too often, theorists come up with great models of the world by assuming away petty inconveniences like bureaucratic politics, implementation with incomplete information, or the effects of rhetorical blowback. But before he throws out the baby with the bathwater, Kaplan might want to ask himself the following question: if policymakers choose not to rely on social science theories to wend their way through a complex world, what navigational aid would Kaplan suggest in its stead? Policymakers across the political spectrum always like to poke fun at explicit theorizing about international relations. The problem is that they usually rely on historical analogies instead — which are, in every way, worse than the use of explicit theories. UPDATE: Tyler Cowen quotes Business Week‘s Michael Mandel on the drawbacks of game theory:

Game theory is no doubt wonderful for telling stories. However, it flunks the main test of any scientific theory: The ability to make empirically testable predictions. In most real-life situations, many different outcomes — from full cooperation to near-disastrous conflict — are consistent with the game-theory version of rationality. To put it a different way: If the world had been blown up during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, game theorists could have explained that as an unfortunate outcome — but one that was just as rational as what actually happened. Similarly, an industry that collapses into run-amok competition, like the airlines, can be explained rationally by game theorists as easily as one where cooperation is the norm.

Tyler has a number of responses (to which Mandel responds) but mine is simple: game theory has the wrong name. It is a theoretical tool rather than a theory in and of itself. Because of this, Mandel is correct that it is possible to devise game-theoretic models that lead to contrasting predictions. However, the virtue of game theory is that the differences made in starting assumptions, institutional rules, and causal processes are laid bare. One can then argue about how realistic the assumptions, rules, and processes are. ANOTHER UPDATE: Mark Kleiman points out and explains why the blogosphere is united in its high regard for Schelling.