Conflict is one of the core components that is shared in geopolitical discourse and game theory. When sovereign states are in conflict with each other, they possess a diverse set of tools to approach the situation and resolve it. Geopolitical conflict’s logical extreme, when in a zero-sum game, is military conflict. In the past, military conflict has largely focused on shifting borders and toppling regimes, but as technology has improved, the context of conflict has become significantly more complex. In the modern era, international threats to national sovereignty have become more focused on the long term impacts of climate change and cyber attacks, as well as global terror threats.
In-line with these shifts, military conflicts have become much more sophisticated as well. With the utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles, cyber-warfare, and economic constraints, the role of the military in global conflict has shifted away from purely fighting wars on the ground to a more holistic approach to warfare. This has caused a new type of arms race, which focuses on improving the capacity of war fighting through cyberspace.
This prompts a serious debate on the necessity of conventional warfare in non-diplomatic conflicts. Conventional warfare maintains its role in modern international conflicts for a plethora of reasons, but it comes with significant costs to both participants in the combative struggle. These costs include loss of life, financial burdens, and stressing marketplaces by reducing the capacity to trade with potential consumers. Each of these costs has to be weighed heavily against the benefits that can be gained from engaging in a military conflict, which can range from limiting the inhumane treatment of citizens, expanding influence, and spreading ideology. This produces a complex calculus for military and political leaders to engage in, which in turn limits the effectiveness and capacity of military operations outright by delaying decision making through deliberation. Each factor that contributes to delay decreases the capacity of the military force, which in turn extends the potential for conflict longer and longer.
Comparatively, diplomatic and economic solutions to sovereign state conflicts carry there own costs and benefits, but tend to focus more on approaching the conflict as a non-zero sum game, whereas military conflict tends to be a zero-sum game. This difference in approach based out of game theory brings up an excellent thought process on the two modes of games, and how to most effectively continue propagating success for sovereign states. Given that there are definite necessities for military engagement in conflicts, the biggest questions to be asked are when and why? Through the complex calculus expressed earlier, political and military leaders have to identify when the ends specifically justify the means to answer these questions, and be ready to bear the weight of that justification.
Conceptually, this puts forward an interesting representation of military conflict as a tool to achieve results where diplomacy and market forces cant. Given that representation, and what has been expressed about game theory, the use of military conflict spuriously could breed disastrous results, not only for those engaged at the ground level, but also those making the call. In American history, the primary examples of this would be the military conflict in Iraq that has crumbled into an chaotic power struggle, and the war in Vietnam. These conflicts were indicative of spurious military engagement, and the outcomes of them are apparent in the long term effects they had on the global perception of the United States as the de facto leader in global affairs, as well as those engaged individually in war fighting efforts.
Game Theory and Geopolitics 