Brief introduction of conflict strategy
Introduction to the content of conflict strategy: The most important idea developed by Schelling in his book Conflict Strategy is about the important role of credible commitment in the process of conflict or negotiation. This idea originated from his paper "On Negotiation" (published in American Economic Review 1956, and later included in Conflict Strategies, which became the content of the second chapter). Its basic connotation is that if one side of the game can restrict part of its freedom of choice in a credible and observable way, it will strengthen its negotiating position and give one side more decision-making power. This sounds impossible, because more freedom of movement always means more mobility. Even in the worst case, you can at least give up mobility. How can it be bad for you to keep it? The well-known "rebirth after death" is the best example in this regard (Schelling also mentioned this example in his book): blowing up the only escape bridge can show your enemy the determination to fight to the death, thus achieving the strategic goal of deterring the enemy's attack. Here, blow up bridges is a credible promise to never retreat. It limits your action space, but it has the effect of scaring off the enemy. And if you keep it and leave yourself a way out, it seems foolproof. But the problem is: at this time, threatening the enemy to let you never retreat is not so credible. The enemy may infer that you are guilty and then attack. In this sense, the seemingly always correct decision-making principles of "camera decision" and "adapting to local conditions" are not necessarily optimal in a certain game environment.