Re: Taliban Tipping Game
You left out of the game the AlQaida, taliban's financer, and main employer o taliban bureaoucrats. Furthermore, taliban have their stronghool between pashtuns etnia, to which thy belong, but there already taliban's oposition didn they first play, on the same dya that taliban moved to Khandahar, their sacred city. Alexander Guerrero - Original Message - From: fabio guillermo rojas [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2001 2:40 AM Subject: Taliban Tipping Game Armchair game theory: Does anybody here think that the war in Afghanistan can be characterized as a tipping game? Conscripted Taliban soldiers and residents of Taliban controlled areas could either support the Taliban or not, and are waiting for somebody else to move first. The first victory last week was signalled Taliban weakness, leading to a chain of defections and the eventual collapse of the regime. Any other game theoretic interpretations of this weeks events? Fabio
Re: Taliban Tipping Game
Here is a chunk of William Saletan's analysis from Slate, It is very supportive of Fabio's tipping interpretation. http://slate.msn.com/?id=2058705 Alex In the north, the Taliban's enemies failed to advance. In the south, they failed to speak up. The American press suggested that the war had bogged down, that the United States had underestimated the Taliban, and that the U.S.-led coalition was falling apart. Complaints of futility and pointless bloodshed grew into an outcry to halt the bombing. Then, last Friday, Mazar-i-Sharif fell. The Taliban's aura was punctured. In accelerating succession, other cities fell. War can't move that fast. It takes days to move your own tanks and troops, much less to push back the enemy's. But even in Afghanistan, the information age has arrived. What traveled from city to city in minutes wasn't the armies of the Northern Alliance, but the news of the Taliban's defeat. Civilians and Taliban soldiers who had resented the regime lost their fear of it. Those who had supported the regime lost their confidence in it. Taliban armies didn't lose their cities in battle; they defected or fled. Each flight or defection, in turn, provoked others. Sell, sell, sell. Now the rout has turned south. Pashtun warlords who refused to stand up to the Taliban a week ago are rushing to claim pieces of its carcass. Some Taliban troops fleeing cities are being wiped out by U.S. bombers. Others are regrouping in the mountains, forgetting that they lack the supply lines and popular support to win the kind of guerrilla war they waged against the Soviets. The rest, according to today's New York Times and Washington Post, are fading away, disappearing, vanishing, dissipating, becoming phantoms, and returning to their home villages. Morale matters. The army that loses self-confidence and the confidence of its people loses the war. -- Dr. Alexander Tabarrok Vice President and Director of Research The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way Oakland, CA, 94621-1428 Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Taliban Tipping Game
Armchair game theory: Does anybody here think that the war in Afghanistan can be characterized as a tipping game? Conscripted Taliban soldiers and residents of Taliban controlled areas could either support the Taliban or not, and are waiting for somebody else to move first. The first victory last week was signalled Taliban weakness, leading to a chain of defections and the eventual collapse of the regime. Any other game theoretic interpretations of this weeks events? Fabio
Re: Taliban Tipping Game
i have nothing to add, but a reading suggestion tullock's war and revolution ca 1974 just an amazing book that talks about all of these issues. - Original Message - From: fabio guillermo rojas [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 6:40 PM Subject: Taliban Tipping Game Armchair game theory: Does anybody here think that the war in Afghanistan can be characterized as a tipping game? Conscripted Taliban soldiers and residents of Taliban controlled areas could either support the Taliban or not, and are waiting for somebody else to move first. The first victory last week was signalled Taliban weakness, leading to a chain of defections and the eventual collapse of the regime. Any other game theoretic interpretations of this weeks events? Fabio
