The Interwar Period: A Strategic Interaction Case Study content/old_uploads/europe1919.jpg

Strategic Elements Personality/reputation of actors Use of incentives First mover advantage Sequential Chicken Salami Tactics “Last clear chance” dilemma Reputation effects

Hitler's Personality Centralized leadership in Germany casts strategic interactions much more with an individual (Hitler) than with a state as a whole Rationality of Irrationality -contest of military might transformed to a significant extent into a contest of wills with a player who seemed all too open to risking all-out conflict -also made prediction of exact actions a challenge

Stresa Conference Major European powers meet in Discussed is Germany's abandonment of the restrictions on military forces imposed by Treaty of Versailles -Negotiations broke down before action was taken against Germany Why? -Germany offered naval agreement to Britain, forcing a strategic decision on the worth of the incentive

Fait Accompli & The Blitz By conducting short, decisive military actions Germany was able to make the first strategic move in most interactions This forced the rest of Europe to be reactive, or (as was mostly the case) de facto non- interactive

Chicken Familiar classic game of sequential play chicken Germany enjoys significant first-mover advantage In this case, we are playing iterated sequential play chicken, so the expanded form looks more like this:

Chicken (cont.) Germany can commit to always choosing “straight” Clearly, in sequential play this is the dominant strategy for Germany, thus Europe can predict this will be the path choosen

Chicken (cont.) Why bother with committing when not swerving is clearly the dominant strategy? -Because you can threaten to use your dominant strategy and win without even playing -This threat is highly credible -Over iterations of the game this might become more attractive then continuing to risk “punitive” mutual disaster

Salami Tactics The last clear chance to avoid mutual disaster is foisted upon Europe Slice by slice territories are annexed by Germany, and the decision to be made comes down to: -Is this territory worth sparking a conflict that can very easily expand beyond our control? -Do we have the resources to successfully engage in conflict?

Militarization of Rhineland German movement of troops in violation of Locarno Pact France's developing ties to the Soviet Union was the pretext for this move Rejoining the League was a carrot dangled for Europe allowing this move -ironically offered at a time when the League was exhibiting its failure to resolve conflict in Ethiopia

Munich Germany directs its aggressive intentions at Czechoslovakia Britain was extremely averse to war -and was not sure that it could successfully defend Czechoslovakia in any case Heavily defended border region of Sudetenland given to Germany to foment “peace in our time” (Chamberlain)

Munich (cont.) This is an example of Germany using its established reputation to allow pre-play communication to gain the prize without even having to truly play The irony is that an invasion of the Sudetenland by Germany stood a significant chance of failure, but by loosing this highly defensible region to agreement, Czechoslovakia was now open to future attack - which is exactly what occured

Poland, The Tipping Point Poland can be held up as an example of the downside of an established reputation of interaction Repeated unswerving commitments eventually make clear that conflict is now inevitable All offering concessions at this stage does is delay the inevitable (and likely make conflict resolution more challenging)