A Game-Theoretic Evaluation of the Cease-Fire Alert Decision of 1973

This article uses a game-theoretic framework to evaluate the decision of the Nixon Administration to place United States forces on a world-wide alert to deter Soviet intervention in the October 1973 war in the Middle East. It finds that the alert decision can be justified and explained if the Nixon Administration's perception of the game is accepted, but only when the long-term rationality of Soviet decision-makers is assumed. It further finds that a less provocative strategy, such as approaching the Soviet leadership and reasserting an American willingness to compromise, would have produced a more tenuous stability than that produced by the alert decision, and that the equilibrium resulting from this alternative policy rested upon a view that the Soviets would not seek unilateral advantages in the conflict. Finally, it demonstrates that under certain con ditions, statesmen may have an incentive to create, rather than avoid, Prisoners' Dilemma games in interna tional crises.