WarSclerotic

Netanyahu Not Succeeding with Game Theory.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is a great believer of “Game Theory.” Netanyahu is an economist, and Game Theory, which developed as a mathematic branch investigating conflict and strategic situations of decision-makers, developed as a tool that aids in making decisions in economic realms.

This is not the place to refer to all the principles of Game Theory, yet anyone who has seen the movie “A Beautiful Mind” can remember “Nash’s equilibrium” – one of the important theories in the field, which awarded Professor John Nash the Nobel Prize in economy. The Israeli economist Professor Israel Uman also won a Nobel prize for his innovations in the field of Game Theory.

Beyond economy, Game Theory principles have served as supporting theories for decision-making in international relations for decades. Thus, for example, one of the theory’s important principles determines that in order to create a change in an opponent’s decision-making process, and propel him to act against his clear interests, one must establish the credibility of the threat directed at him.

Netanyahu and his people believe that in order to “convince” Tehran to halt the military nuclear program (a clear Iranian interest), the threat coming from the direction of the United States, Israel and the Western countries must be tangible and conclusive. Otherwise, Iran will assume that it is best that it sticks to its plan, and that in the moment of truth, when on the verge of completing the bomb, the US will prefer not to attack because it will not be “worth it” for them, thus allowing them to complete their goal. According to Netanyahu and his fellow thinkers (probably in the IDF and the National Security Council), US President Obama’s amorphous statements that “The US will not accept an Iranian nuclear bomb” will not get the job done, and that Iran will laugh all the way towards a bomb. It might suffer from the financial sanctions, but it will reach its objective.

According to Game Theory, one of the tools used to attain credibility for a certain threat is to have one side decide on “red lines”, so that they cannot back away from them. During the 1961 Cuban missile crisis, the US clarified to the USSR that it is ready to start a nuclear war, which was not an interest of its, in order to prevent missiles from being stationed on Cuban soil. The USSR was convinced that the threat was genuine, and the missiles were eventually returned to Europe without a single shot being fired.

According to Netanyahu and his people, the US positioned a tangible threat before Iran itself, only that this was a while ago, between 2003 and 2005. At the time, Iran genuinely feared a US invasion after the war in Iraq, and halted the country’s nuclear program for the only time since it was established nearly 20 years ago. When the Iranian concern dissipated, the centrifuges began working again. “red lines” aren’t a US invention, nor an inseparable part of just Game Theory.
Israel has set “red lines” itself in the past (even when it declares that it will “not negotiate with abductors,” it is trying to convince terrorists that it isn’t worth their while to carry out abductions; we know the reliability of this Israeli statement, as do Hamas and other organizations). A little reminder: in 1967, Israel declared that it will not agree to the closing of the Straights of Tiran, and stood by its statement even at the cost of starting the Six-Day War. In the War of Attrition, it claimed that it will not accept the stationing of soviet missiles close to the canal, but folded in the end. The price was paid dearly in the Yom Kippur War.

What does this all have to do with Iran and the series of speeches at the UN General Assembly? Netanyahu tried his best to convince the US to define a credible red line for Iran in the framework of Obama’s UN speech, after Obama spoke on Yom Kippur and did not set such a red line. Netanyahu’s own speech at the UN General Assembly also did not succeed in convincing the US to set such a line.

What went wrong in Netanyahu’s game theory? It seems that the prime minister took the theory too far. After all, game theory is a “tool” for aiding in the decision-making process, and not necessarily one that dictates the reality itself. Furthermore, a country can set red lines as its leader sees fit, but it is far more complicated to get another country to set a ‘red line’ in your name.

Moreover: Netanyahu did not succeed in creating credibility for the US threat, in part because of the trust crisis between Israel and the US (one that will intensify if Obama wins his reelection and decides to punish Netanyahu for what is viewed as intervention in internal US affairs in favor of his presidential opponent Mitt Romney).

In the bottom line, as of now: no red line and no trust. It all depends now on the question of just how much Obama means his expression that “the US will not accept an Iranian bomb.” According to the current timetable, the next significant test will apparently come in the next spring, when Iran will be at a distance of one or two months from attaining preliminary military nuclear capability.

Eizenkot
If you were under the impression that “game theory” is taking up the time of senior IDF and Israeli defense industry echelons, against the backdrop of the events taking place at the UN, then you were wrong. The really top issue has to do with the appointment of the IDF’s deputy chief of staff and the coming moment of truth of the Israeli State Comptroller’s report concerning the “Harpaz affair,” which is expected to arrive in the coming week.

The best minds will spend the weekend dealing with the question of how to make Ehud Barak and former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi come out good from a public perspective in light of the report. The IDF is currently waiting for an announcement regarding Major General Gadi Eizenkot’s appointment as deputy chief of staff. Amir Oren revealed in Ha’aretz that Israeli State Attorney Yehudah Weinstein approved the appointment in a special decision on the eve of Yom Kippur, despite Eizenkot’s minor involvement in the Harpaz affair (he was the one who consulted with Gabi Siboni and with Tamir Pardo, the current Head of Mossad, about the issue, and according to the chain of events that followed the document made its way to the Israeli Channel 2 TV network).

Despite Weinstein’s opinion, Eizenkot’s appointment is not assured. Barak still has a say in the matter. If Eizenkot is appointed, it does not necessarily mean that he will be the candidate for the role of next IDF chief of staff. The current deputy, Major General Yair Naveh, will be a candidate, even though the media does not appear to be considering him. In either way, Gadi Eizenkot was Ehud Barak’s military secretary 12 years ago in the Ministry of Defense, and if all goes well from his perspective, he will soon join him on the 14th floor of the Genera Staff’s building and among the senior echelon of the Ministry of Defense’s Kiriyah base in Tel Aviv.

Political Survival
Are the nuclear threat and the Harpaz affair the issues most troubling Israel’s Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, these days? It would appear that there is another “heavy” topic – his own political survival. Barak is currently in the midst of a serious clash with Prime Minister Netanyahu (“Yedioth Aharonot” even revealed on Thursday that Netanyahu and his wife invited Barak’s enemy, Gabi Ashkenazi, and his wife Ronit to a warm meeting). Barak knows that he can no longer be assured a place on the Likud’s list of Knesset members on behalf of himself and his people.

He already took care of former minister Matan Vilnai, who is now the ambassador to China. Another close person, Minister Shalom Simhon, may soon find himself in a desired role of his own. However, how can Barak succeed in passing the ‘election threshold’, namely winning three election mandates (approximately 80,000 votes)? Barak and those close to him believe that he can bring between a mandate and a mandate and a half himself; Orit Noked and Shalom Simhon might be able to bring another mandate from the Kibbutz and Moshav movements, and Shachiv Shnaan (also a Knesset member on behalf of the Barak’s Independence party) will try to bring votes from the Druze sector.

Will all this suffice to pass the election threshold or will it end in a crash? Perhaps Barak will be the surprise of the next elections? No one can tell.

Explore posts in the same categories: Uncategorized

This entry was posted on October 3, 2012 at 7:56 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.