Game theory modeling for the Cold War on both sides of the Iron Curtain

Abstract

The bi-polar confrontation between the Soviet Union and the USA involved many leading game theorists from both sides of the Iron Curtain: Oskar Morgenstern, John von Neumann, Michael Intriligator, John Nash, Thomas Schelling and Steven Brams from the United States and Nikolay Vorob’ev, Leon A. Petrosyan, Elena B. Yanovskaya and Olga N. Bondareva from the Soviet Union. The formalization of game theory (GT) took place prior to the Cold War but the geopolitical confrontation hastened and shaped its evolution. In our article we outline four similarities and differences between Western GT and Soviet GT: 1) the Iron Curtain resulted in a lagged evolution of GT in the Soviet Union; 2) Soviet GT focused more on operations research and issues of centralized planning; 3) the contemporary Western view on Soviet GT was biased and Soviet contributions, including works on dynamic stability, non-emptiness of the core and many refinements, suggest that Soviet GT was able to catch up to the Western level relatively fast; 4) international conferences, including Vilnius, 1971, fostered interaction between Soviet game theorists and their Western colleagues. In general, we consider the Cold War to be a positive environment for GT in the West and in the Soviet Union.

Socialist gerontology? Or gerontology during socialism? The Bulgarian case

“…32 As in other social and human sciences (cf. Hagemann, Kufenko, and Raskov, 2016), the chances for broader international exchange were limited to conferences, which ensured a certain degree of interaction, and to publications in international journals, which provided some visibility to research results.…”

Sociological game theory: agency, social structures and interaction processes

“…En pocas palabras, el jugador es ajeno a sentir empatía con quienes interactúa, y consecuentemente trata de maximizar la ventaja para ganar su juego sin importar los medios, o las consecuencias para otros. En otras palabras, Hagemann, Vadim Kufenko y Danila Raskov (2016), "Game theory modeling for the Cold War on both sides of the Iron Curtain"; History of the Human Sciences, 29 (4), pp. 99-124.…”

Psychological theory as administrative politics: Boris Lomov’s systems approach in the context of the Soviet science establishment

“…Rather, he showed interest exclusively in technical improvements central to engineering psychology, which could have economic value. It is doubtful, since he was well informed about research abroad, that he did not know about the development of fields linking psychology and economics, such as game theory (Hageman, Kufenko, and Raskov, 2016); however, he chose not to mention them.…”