A Nobel Economist Analyzes the Strategies Of the Deadly Serious Games Nations Play
Years before he wrote the "Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith, the intellectual father of capitalism, wrote a lesser-known text called "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," which sought to explain why self-interested individuals might have feelings like pity or compassion for others.
Ever since, economists have been trying to predict and explain how individuals interact. To understand markets, they recognized, they needed to understand what lay hidden in the minds and motivations of people. Game theory, which became popular 200 years after Adam Smith, was an example. It sought to explain how individuals plot strategies against each other in simple games like chess and deadly games like the nuclear-arms race. As an indication of game theory's importance, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences last month awarded the Nobel Prize for economics to trailblazers in the field, Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann.
Their work has been applied to everything from business strategy to bankruptcy. But it was in the geopolitical realm where the theorists made some of their biggest marks. Both came of age during the Cold War, when the arms race posed the most important strategic questions of the time. Geopolitics also is where their insights are especially valuable today, as political and business leaders try to understand how their decisions about terror, North Korea's nuclear ambitions and global warming could affect the economic landscape in decades to come.
In an interview, Prof. Schelling said terrorism isn't a big threat, but global warming might be. He also advocated U.S. participation in black markets for nuclear-fissile material. (Read excerpts from an additional interview with Prof. Aumann.)
Q: How have the rules of the game of nuclear deterrence changed now that the players are countries like Iran and North Korea, instead of the Soviet Union a generation ago?
Prof. Schelling: I think if Iran or North Korea gets nuclear weapons, they will think of them as deterrent weapons. They won't want to get into any kind of nuclear war. They won't want to use those weapons. They will want to use them to keep Russia or the U.S. from intervening militarily, and we will learn what it is like being deterred not by a highly qualified adversary, but by a couple of small inimical countries. We may have to get used to that.
Q: There's also this concern that North Korea or Iran could become involved in illicit trade in nuclear weapons?
Prof. Schelling: I have a hunch that if there ever appeared to be a black market in fissile material or in actual bombs, that the U.S. would have the good sense and the cleverness and the ability to enter the black market and engage in what we used to call preclusive purchases. During World War II there were a lot of natural resources, mostly minerals, that the Germans badly needed, and the U.S. had a program of buying up those materials, not because we wanted them but because we wanted to keep them out of the hands of the Germans. I would think that we would be able to outbid anybody that wanted to buy a nuclear weapon. If North Korea thinks it can sell a nuclear weapon for $1 billion, we ought to be in there offering $5 billion so nobody could top that bid.
Q: That sounds like a slippery slope. How is the Bush administration doing managing the changing nuclear threat?
Prof. Schelling: It's perfectly clear that it's had no success in Iran, and it's had no success in North Korea. Whether that's because it's doing it badly or because it's an impossible task, I don't know. I tend to think that it is not being very pragmatic about North Korea. We really ought to give North Korea some kind of nonaggression assurance... We should volunteer it, on grounds that the primary motivation for North Korea to get a nuclear weapon is to make sure the U.S. can never attack. If they were to take seriously a nonaggression treaty, they might feel less need to have a nuclear weapon.
Q: Doesn't that just invite other players into the game?
Prof. Schelling: I don't think so. Who? Brazil? Argentina? Bangladesh? Who wants to get into the game? It is not a good game to get into.
Q: In the case of terrorism more broadly, we're dealing with an enemy that doesn't seem to be bound by the same sense of self-preservation that we're accustomed to from an enemy.
Prof. Schelling: It is important for us, the potential victims, to recognize that with the exception of the Twin Towers in New York, terrorism is an almost minuscule problem. [John] Mueller, at Ohio State University, estimates that the number of people who die from terrorist attacks is smaller than the number of people who die in their bathtubs. If you take the Trade Towers, we lost about 3,000 people. Three thousand people is about 3? weeks of automobile fatalities in the U.S. If you rank all of the causes of death in the U.S. or around the world, different kinds of accidents, drowning, falling down stairs, automobile accidents, struck by lightning, heart attacks, infections acquired during hospital surgery, terrorism is way down at the bottom.
Q: Then what are the biggest issues globally that need to be attacked?
Prof. Schelling: A big problem is going to be climate change. We're going to spend a long time trying to figure out what to do about it. I don't think we have any idea yet what to do about it. In the second half of the 20th century, arms control was the most demanding diplomatic issue there was. In the 21st century, greenhouse-gas emissions, global warming and climate change is going to be the biggest diplomatic issue there is.
Q: But you've also said that you don't expect global warming to severely impact the developed economies because agriculture is such a small portion of our output?
Prof. Schelling: It's a very severe threat to a lot of developing countries. For many of them, 30% of their gross product is agriculture or fisheries or forestry. In many countries half the people depend on agriculture for subsistence. In this country, so few people depend on agriculture for their living that the Census Bureau no longer counts farmers. So I think even if in this country global warming doubles the cost of growing food, that would reduce [gross domestic product] by between 1% and 2%, and that would happen over a period of years in which GDP would double. So instead of doubling by 2060, you would double by 2061 or 2062. You would never notice a difference.
Q: Why is it such a big threat then?
Prof. Schelling: In the U.S., if you don't worry about ecological damage, species extinction and things of that sort; if you don't worry about what happens in Bangladesh or Indonesia or Brazil; if you figure air conditioning will always take care of your weather problems; then I would say with one or two exceptions, you probably don't have to get too scared. One exception is there is a body of ice in Antarctica called the West Antarctic ice sheet. It is anchored by some islands, but warming the water surrounding it might cause it to slide into the ocean. The estimate is that that would raise sea level by as much as 20 feet. That means to go from the White House to the Capitol, you go by boat. It would be a huge calamity.
诺贝尔经济学奖获得者的国策分析
早在撰写《国富论》(Wealth of Nations)之前，资本主义的思想之父亚当?斯密还写过一本不太出名的书，名叫《道德情操论》(The Theory of Moral Sentiments)，这本书希望对原本自私自利的个人为何会有同情和怜悯他人之情做出解释。
自那以来，经济学家们一直在试图预测和解释人与人之间是如何互相影响的。他们认识到，要了解市场，就必须了解人们的想法和动机背后隐藏著什么。在亚当?斯密谢世后200年开始大行其道的搏弈论就是人们在这方面取得的一项成果。人们会策划出各种各样与他人相斗的策略，小到象棋比赛中的招数，大到核武器竞赛这种致命游戏中的各种策略，而搏弈论就是试图解释人们是如何制定这些策略的。瑞典皇家科学院(Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)上个月将本年度的诺贝尔经济学奖授予了搏弈论的奠基人托马斯?谢林(Thomas Schelling)和罗伯特?奥曼(Robert Aumann)，此举表明了搏弈论在当今世界的重要地位。
虽然他们两人的研究成果已被运用于从商业策略到企业破产等各个方面，但他们的一些最显著研究成果则是在地缘政治领域取得的。这两人都成长于冷战时期，军备竞赛是当时世界面临的最重要战略性问题。他们两人的见解今天在地缘政治领域也仍然具有重要价值，因为政界和商界领袖们希望知道自己应对恐怖主义、朝鲜的核野心以及全球变暖方面的决策将会如何影响今后数十年的世界经济。
谢林教授日前在接受采访时说，恐怖主义不是什么大威胁，但全球变暖却可能是。他还建议美国参与核裂变材料黑市的交易。
以下是对谢林的采访：
问：既然核威慑的产生地已经从二十年前的苏联变成了伊朗和朝鲜等国家，这方面的游戏规则现在有了怎样的改变？
答：我认为如果伊朗或朝鲜得到了核武器，它们会将其视为威慑性武器。它们不想参与到任何形式的核战争中去。他们不想使用这些武器。它们只想用这些武器来阻止俄罗斯或美国对其进行军事干涉，而我们将了解的是，不是被一个旗鼓相当的敌手而是被几个具有敌意的小国所威慑会是什么样子。我们可能不得不适应这种局面。
问：有人担心朝鲜或伊朗有可能参与到核武器的非法交易中去。
答：我有种预感，如果真的会出现核裂变材料或核武器黑市，美国将具备涉足这一黑市的动机和能力，并在这一市场上从事我们过去所说的拆台性购买。在第二次世界大战期间，有许多自然资源(主要是矿产品)是德国所急需的，而美国则制定了一项买断这些矿产品的计划，这倒不是因为美国希望得到这些东西，而是它不希望这些矿产品落入德国人之手。我认为我们可以通过报高价的方式使所有想买核武器的人从竞购中出局。如果朝鲜想以每枚10亿美元的价格出售核武器，那么我们就出50亿美元去买，这样就没有人能高过我们的出价了。
问：这听上去像是一个危险的开端。布什政府正在如何应对这种核威胁的转变？
答：显然布什政府在应对伊朗的核威胁方面做得不成功，它在应对朝鲜的核威胁方面也不成功。我不知道这是因为布什政府行事不当还是因为它面临的是一项不可能取得成功的任务。我倾向于认为布什政府对朝鲜的态度不是非常现实，我们真的应该给朝鲜某种形式的不侵犯保证.......我们应该自觉自愿地去做这件事，理由是朝鲜发展核武器的主要动机就是确保美国永远不会对其发动袭击。如果与朝鲜认真签署一项互不侵犯条约，该国可能就会认为没有什么必要拥有核武器了。
问：难道这不恰恰会吸引其他国家加入到这场游戏中吗？
答：我不认为会这样。还会有哪个国家？巴西？阿根廷？孟加拉国？谁想加入这场游戏？这可不是什么好玩的游戏。
问：鉴于恐怖主义活动的更广泛出现，我们正被一个不同于以往的敌人所威胁，这个敌人似乎不像我们以往的敌人那样具有自我保护意识。
答：作为潜在的受害者，我们必须意识到，除了纽约世贸中心被撞那件事，恐怖主义威胁几乎是个微不足道的小问题。据艾奥瓦州立大学(Ohio State University)的穆勒教授估计，死于恐怖袭击的人比死在自家澡盆里的人还要少。纽约世贸中心被撞导致约3,000人丧生，这相当于美国三周半的车祸死亡人数。如果你将美国或全球的致人死亡原因从大到小列个表，就会发现各种意外事故、溺水、滚落楼梯、雷击、心脏病和住院做手术期间受到感染等原因造成的死亡人数都要远高于死于恐怖袭击的人数。
问：那么什么才是最需要解决的全球性问题呢？
答：气候变化将是个大问题。我们找到应对这一问题的办法将花费很长时间。我不认为我们已经找到了应对这一问题的任何办法。在20世纪的下半叶，军控曾是最急需解决的外交问题。而在21世纪，温室气体排放、全球变暖和气候变化将成为最大的外交问题。
问：但你也说过，你不认为全球变暖会严重影响发达国家，因为农业在我们的经济产出中只占很小一部分，是吗？
答：这对许多发展中国家是个非常严重的威胁。对许多这类国家来说，国内生产总值的30%来自农业、渔业或林业。在许多国家，半数以上的人口靠农业为生。在美国，由于依赖农业为生的人口是如此之少，以致于人口普查局(Census Bureau)已不再统计农业人口。因此我认为，即使全球变暖使农作物种植成本增加一倍，美国的国内生产总值也只会因此而减少1%到2%，而这种减少还是在很多年内累计发生的，在此期间美国的国内生产总值将增加一倍。所以，国内生产总值翻一番的时间如果不出现在2060年，那么也会出现在2061年或2062年，这简直没有什么差别。
问：那气候变化为什么还是个大问题呢？
答：在美国，如果你不担忧生态问题、物种灭绝或其他诸如此类的问题，如果你不担心发生在孟加拉国、印度尼西亚或巴西的问题，如果你认为空调就能解决你遇到的天气问题，那么除了一两项例外，你恐怕还真没有什么更值得担心的问题了。而其中一项例外就是南极洲被称做西南极洲冰带的区域。气候变暖导致的海水温度升高有可能导致这一冰带融化。据估计这将使全球海平面升高20英尺之多。这意味著从白宫到国会山只能乘船了。这将是场巨大的灾难。
