Introduction:

India’s muscular approach towards Pakistan, especially post-Uri, post-Pulwama has underpinnings in game theory.

• India launched its “surgical strike”, after the jihadi attack on the Uri army camp in 2016.
• Last month Indian Air Force struck a terrorist camp in Balakot deep inside Pakistan, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The below article deals with the question – “Will tit for tat work in the Pakistani context?”

What Game Theory suggests?

• Game theory suggests that tit for tat strategy should work better than any other strategy India has followed in the past.
• India had adopted strategies that involve strategy of restraint or non-retaliation in response to a provocation. In other words, India accepted mistreatment without retaliating or seeking revenge.
• For 30 years, Indian decision makers were paralysed when it came to responding to terror emanating from Pakistan. India is perhaps the only country in the world which did not respond militarily when its Parliament was attacked and when its financial capital was brutalised.
• Such soft strategies have not prompted even small changes in Pakistani behaviour. Therefore, according to Game Theory, if tit for tat is a consistent policy for India, the chances are it will deliver better results.

Do you know: About Game Theory?

• Game theory is a theoretical framework for conceiving of social situations among competing players.
• In some respects, game theory is the science of strategy, or set of concepts aimed at decision making in situations of competition and conflict (as well as of cooperation and interdependence) under specified rules.
• Any time we have a situation with two or more players that involves known payouts or quantifiable consequences, we can use game theory to help determine the most likely outcomes.

Tit for tat strategy

• Tit for tat as an effective strategy originated in the 1980s. It was first introduced by Anatol Rapoport in Robert Axelrod’s two tournaments, held around 1980.
• An agent using this strategy will first cooperate, then subsequently replicate an opponent’s previous action. If the opponent previously was cooperative, the agent is cooperative. If not, the agent is not.
• For example, if provoked, a player subsequently responds with retaliation; if unprovoked, the player cooperates.

In the India-Pakistan context, India has been following the strategy of restraint, even non-retaliation.  However, under current regime, we have seen a variation of the tit-for-two-tats strategy.

• After the Pathankot air force station attack by the Jaish-e-Mohammed, India tried to get Pakistani cooperation in identifying who the attackers were.
• It was only after Uri followed that India retaliated with the surgical strike.

Earlier, India was okay with even a tit-for-several-tats non-strategy, which failed miserably in getting Pakistan to behave better. The only lesson Pakistan learnt from our tepid response was that we have a high threshold for pain and punishment, and thus their “death-by-a-thousand-cuts” plan was working.

Under current regime, this strategy is being reworked to become a true tit for tat, and if India persists with this over the long term, it should improve Pakistan’s behaviour.

If we accept tit for tat as a more moral and workable strategy in the long run, clearly India needs to deploy it consistently in both directions—retaliation and cooperation.

Conclusion:

The lesson to learn from game theory is that consistency in policy is vital to get the message across. Tit for tat will work as long as it is consistent across governments.

Giving it up for meaningless talks will mean loss of all the gains made so far from the surgical strike and Balakot.