Wolford - Politics of the First World War : A Course in Game Theory and International Security (9781108612906)

The Great War is an immense, confusing, and overwhelming historical conflict the ideal case study for teaching game theory and international security.

Using thirteen historical puzzles, from the outbreak of the war and the stability of attrition, to unrestricted submarine warfare and American entry into the war, this book provides students with a rigorous yet accessible training in game theory. Each chapter shows, through guided exercises, how game-theoretical models can explain otherwise challenging strategic puzzles, shedding light on the role of individual leaders in world politics, cooperation between coalition partners, the effectiveness of international law, the termination of conflict, and the challenges of making peace. Its analytical history the First World War also surveys cutting-edge political science research on international relations and the causes of war.

Written by a leading game theorist known for his expertise regarding the war, this textbook includes useful student features such as chapter key terms, contemporary maps, a timeline of events, a list of key characters, and additional end-of-chapter game-theoretic exercises.

SCOTT WOLFORD is Associate Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. He published his first book, The Politics of Military Coalitions, in 2015, and has published articles in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, International Organization, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, and International Studies Quarterly, among others. He is a fellow of the Frank C. Irwin Chair in Government (201118), a recipient of the Best Paper in International Relations Award from the Midwest Political Science Association (2009), and a former associate editor for International Studies Quarterly.

Scott Wolford

The University of Texas at Austin

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DOI: 10.1017/9781108349956

Scott Wolford 2019

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2019

Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall 2019

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wolford, Scott, author.

Title: The politics of the First World War : a course in game theory and international security / Scott Wolford, University of Texas, Austin.

Description: Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018035966 | ISBN 9781108426015 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108444378 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: World War, 19141918Political aspects. | Game theoryCase studies. | Security, InternationalCase studies.

Classification: LCC D523 .W656 2019 | DDC 940.3/1dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018035966

ISBN 978-1-108-42601-5 Hardback

ISBN 978-1-108-44437-8 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For years, Id been frustrated at the lack of options for teaching undergraduate international security in the way that I conduct my own research on the topic: through the construction and analysis of game-theoretic models. Students could take a game theory course, and they could take numerous courses on international security, but despite game-theoretic works prominence in recent theoretical advances in the field, no course taught both in an integrated way. Students taking my security course, for example, got an unrepresentative look at the why and the how of social-scientific inquiry. Thats especially problematic for those who go on to grad school and learn that what they consumed as an undergraduate was produced with methods that are basically alien to them. So I took advantage of the centennial of the First World War to try something new, using history to teach both international security and game theory. I designed a course that followed events in the war in real time, tracking as closely as possible to the day, week, or month the events in the war one hundred years later, using the tools of game theory to understand one of the most consequential conflicts in world history. Then, I structured lectures around identifying and resolving puzzles raised by the war, beginning with a question e.g., if strategies of attrition were so futile, why were they so stable? and peeling back its layers analytically before settling on a simple theoretical model that can provide insight into the why and how of the outbreak, course, and end of the first truly global war. I decided that my students would encounter the historical-empirical record by focusing on a single conflict, get puzzled by it, and then learn how to resolve those puzzles in the classroom. Students, I hoped, would learn the game-theoretic analysis of politics by doing it and by seeing it done; theyd learn both game theory and the state of the art in the study of international security, all through the endlessly fascinating lens of the First World War. Engaging history in a political science course can be challenging, just like teaching game theory in a political science course; but it turns out that combining these two goals makes each task easier. After separating the wheat from the chaff (I hope), this volume collects those lectures, presenting what I believe is a unique course on the First World War, modern theories of international relations, and the development and use of game-theoretic models to analyze politics.

This books most distinctive feature is its focus on analyzing politics in real time. Thinking in real time means taking seriously the options and information available to the characters in our story when they acted: the possible futures they envisioned, feared, and tried to shape, free of the decades of accumulated hindsight that can blind us to the very real, contingent, often agonizing choices that defined the outbreak, course, prosecution, and termination of the First World War. Decisions that look inevitable in hindsight look very different when studied and explained in real time, when we as analysts try to see what the characters in our story saw, looking into what was for them an uncertain, often frightening future. The real-time approach also works well as an organizing device for studying the First World War in particular. This book works from a simple temporal narrative, identifying and solving puzzles about events before, during, and after the war that illustrate both important ideas in the study of international politics and the concepts of game-theoretic analysis, the second primary feature of this books approach. Each chapter poses questions from the vantage of the early twenty-first century, but it answers them by building and analyzing models in the present tense of the early twentieth century.