RE: Nuclear Game Theory

I am very pleased with Cobra's efforts in the Nuclear Game Theory post.  I honestly think your analysis is spot on when it comes to the options of non-nuclear nations.  Specifically, you outline the following and main point:

"Now, obviously a deal like this is just extremely poorly disguised bullying - no reasonable, self interested state would every agree to something like that, nor would they expect anyone else to either.."

unless you are...

"if you're the type of country who would never ever want to attack Cylon Russia China, then this deal is great - you save on having to build your own nuclear program while still getting nuclear protection, plus you get that nice warm fuzzy feeling of playing nice with everyone. Or perhaps you're a country that doesn't feel all that great about the CRC, but fears being nuked by someone else - if you don't have any hope of acquiring your own nuclear arsenal within sufficient time to adequately deter such an attack, it would probably still be in your best interest to sign a nonproliferation treaty."

I think it's important to point out how much of the general punditry is dedicated to the single minded idea that nuclear weapons are meant to be only in our hands because we're the good guys.  That line of thinking totally omits the game theoretic approach and simply relies on bias.

But now here is my challenge to Cobra... without mentioning names or labels.  In your model, you depict the game between countries, states, state leaders, etc.  What about rogue organizations, extremists, who do not have the same value system as states (survival as a goal, for example) but can obtain these weapons from states?? should we not deter such states from having the weapons on the basis of not allowing such organizations to obliterate their enemies?  Personally, I'd believe no state would give weapons to extremists, but is this really set in stone? I guess you can build a model where the action of supplying weapons to extremists is equal to getting nuked (that may be essentially what would happen).  I think this is where nuclear politics get murky.