Adversaries in indeterminate games mutually construct the norms that govern their conflict

Evidence

Because a “law of reprisal” is essentially casuistic in nature; because the mutually recognized restraints in any form of “limited war” are essentially based on something psychologically and sociologically akin to tradition; and because the received body of casuistry and tradition is often wholly inadequate to the game at hand (say, graduated atomic reprisal on the U.S.S.R. and America while limited atomic war obtains in Europe, or the bombing of grammar schools in an area without recent experience in racial violence, or the introduction of new forms of non-price competition in a particular industry), it seems likely that the empirical part of game theory will include experimental work like that of Muzafer Sherif. He finds that when no norms exist for a laboratory judgment, they are created by the subjects; and when norms are created for two parties in the same process, each player’s developing norm influences the other’s. There is a process of genuine learning with respect to values; each side adapts its own system of values to the other’s, in forming its own. When the supply of available “objective” criteria is incapable of yielding a complete set of rules, that is, when the game is “indeterminate,” norms of some sort must be developed, mutually perceived, and accepted; patterns of action and response have to be legitimized. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 379

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the reader’s Milgrom et al. private-judges framework: norms developed mutually in indeterminate games are the credibility mechanism behind Godfather-bonds and arbitration. — connects to: Mafia norms function as a self-perpetuating Nash equilibrium; Even conflict between adversaries can be modeled as partnership discipline — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 738; Conflict settings share common-interest structures across wildly different scales — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 7 (+4 more)
• DEFINE: Defines ‘indeterminate game’ as one where objective criteria can’t yield complete rules, forcing mutual norm construction.
• DEEPTHINKING: Core to the whole argument: adversaries must jointly legitimize retaliation and innovation norms rather than being given them — reframes limited war as negotiated tradition-building.

Related

• Adversaries can understand subaltern political technique better than subalterns (similarity 0.83)
• Even conflict between adversaries can be modeled as partnership discipline (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Non-symmetric moves like commitments and threats enrich cooperative games. #expands (0.72) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 635