News Stor: The Taliban Threat is Not Just Americas Burden - Term Paper Example

News Story - The Taliban Threat is Not Just America’s Burden - Number of Words: ___2,497 words__ Table of Contents I. Introduction ……………………………………………………………….. 3 II. Importance of Understanding and Analyzing the Monetary Policy ……… 3 III. Description of the Person Involved ………………………………………. 4 IV. Game Theory to Predict the Outcome ……………………………………. 5 a. Prisoner’s Dilemma ……………………………………………… 5 b. Asymmetric-Dominance Equilibrium …………………………… 6 c. Coordination ……………………………………………………… 8 V. Important Considerations When Using a Game Theory in Analyzing Terrorist Attacks ……………………………………………… 9 VI. Unanswered Questions and Future Directions …………………………… 10 VI. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………... 11 References ………………………………………………………………………… 12 Introduction ‘The Taliban Threat is Not Just America’s Burden’; this news was posted on Financial Times on April 2007. (Hunter, 2007) The news is about President George W. Bush meeting the European Union leaders for the annual US-EU summit that was held in Washington, DC on April 30. The main highlight of the agenda is the Afghanistan case. America is expecting European Union to take action with regards to the terrorism that is happening in the land of Afghanistan. However, European Union does not seem to be acting on it. European Union countries have sent several billion dollars worth of aid. It is clear that not all European Union members are willing to share the risks of fighting the Talibans. This case is purely in conflict of what is expected from them when they have agreed to join European Union. Importance of Understanding and Analyzing the Reasons behind Terrorist Attacks It is important to understand and analyze the factors behind terrorist attacks. The same should be done with the countries that are fighting against the terrorist attackers in exchange of putting the lives of the soldiers at risks. The situation is also putting the U.S. at greater risks of having a repeat situation of the September 11 attack. In case this event happens, the US dollar would definitely slide down against all other currencies. This will eventually cause a lot of major macroeconomic problems especially now that we have entered the world of globalization. In this case, it is not only the U.S. that will be indirectly affected by it. A lot of businesses in the global world that deals directly with U.S. will also feel the sudden weakening of the after effects of a terrorist attack in the U.S. economy. Usually, when a country experiences a bad economy, this will also be passed on to its neighboring countries. Mostly the countries having a business transaction with the affected country or someone whose business involve dealing with the currencies. The domino effect of a bad economy can either immediately take place or it might take a year before the pressure on the prices of goods and services will be highly affected. We have seen the huge effects on the September 11 attack in the World Trade Centre in U.S. It is evident that the situation that they have gone through has caused a lot of damage to the U.S. economy as well as emotional burdens to the affected families. Despite the huge losses that the U.S. had encountered in the past six years, the U.S. is still actively sending off some military people to fight with the Talibans in Afghanistan. It made me wonder what the U.S. would gain from going through a lot of wars with the terrorist attackers. Definitely the U.S. must be getting something back from sending some of the U.S. troops to fight the Talibans. All this questions will be explained in the game theory portion of this paper. Description of the Person Involved There are three parties involved in this news: the US President, the European Union leaders, and the Talibans in Afghanistan. President Bush and the Afghanistan leaders are convincing European Union to join in force against the Taliban terrorist attackers. So far, the US is the only country taking full action against the Talibans. European Union is helping through sending the Afghanistan some financial aids. The European Union is trying not to actively participate in the war as of now since majority of its member countries are not in favorable of joining the was against the Talibans. The Talibans are the terrorist group that is trying to win Afghanistan for their own benefit. In line with this goal and some of their religious beliefs, these people are willing to kill other people even up to the extent of committing a suicide bombing. Game Theory to Predict the Outcome The case of the ‘Taliban in Afghanistan’ is an example of a proactive policy. It means that is involves an aggressive going after the terrorists in exchange of eliminating their resources, people, and infrastructure. This case involves a preemptive strike against the terrorists and/or with the help of other state as sponsors. Normally, when a preemptive attack becomes successful in eliminating the terrorist threat on potential targets, more or less a free ride or relying on the efforts of other people, state, or country is unavoidable. There are three types of game that applies with proactive policy. These are: Prisoner’s Dilemma (Lee, 1998; Lee and Sandler, 1989), Asymmetric-Dominance Equilibrium, and Coordination (Sandler, T. and Arce D., 2003). Let us use the three alternative game forms for taking actions against the terrorist attacks in the Taliban case wherein the U.S. and the European Union (EU) would decide on whether to push through with the plan of preventing the terrorist threats that comes from the Talibans. Prisoner’s Dilemma Considering that the benefits on both countries is presented by number 4 while the cost of controlling the threats of terrorists is presented by number 6, in case the United States decided to take the full lead in controlling the Talibans from doing terrorist attacks on the Afghanistan women, the European Union in this case takes a free ride. It simply means that the European Union will receive 4 in benefits while the US will have a –2 (4 – 6 = -2) for going through the terrorists alone. Let us look at the scenario wherein the US takes the free ride while the European Union takes the full action. It would simply mean that the Payoffs would be reversed. (US will receive 4 in benefits while the European Union will have a –2 [4 – 6 = -2]) In case both US and European Union takes equal action against the problem with the Talibans, then each country will receive 2 in benefits because the costs of performing the action will be deducted from the gross benefits that is represented by a gross benefits of 8 [4 x 2 = 8]. The result of this game is a ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ because no one took an aggressive action against the Taliban. (See Matrix a on page 6) In case of using the Prisoner’s Dilemma matrix, without taking into consideration the high risks of US over the European Union, the best choice for both countries is either for both countries to participate in taking a full action against the Taliban or simply choose not to take actions at all. In case only one of the two countries would go through a war against the terrorist attackers, it is the free rider that will benefit in the end; not the one who went through the war. Asymmetric-Dominance Equilibrium Let us look at the case in a different scenario in matrix b. The case of European Union is so much different from the US in the sense that the United States usually gains a net benefit from taking actions against terrorism alone. This makes the US a hot spot for transnational terrorist attacks. Considering that the US taking charge of the full action against the Talibans yields a total of 8 in benefits and 4 in benefits in the case of European Union. (US was given a higher number in benefits because it faces more threats that European Union) In case European Union takes full action against the Talibans, European Union and US will receive 4 in benefits each. Assuming that the cost of taking action against the Taliban will remain as 6. In case the US alone will fight with the Talibans, the US will have a net of 2 (8 – 6 = 2) while the European Union receives a gain of 4 for free riding. In case European Union took charge alone, then the US will receive 4 in benefits while European Union will get a –2 [4 – 6 = -2]. If both the US and European Union decides to take action together, then the US will have a net of 6 [(8 + 4) – 6 = 6] while European Union gets a net of 2. Looking at the picture, it is clear that the US is more dominant than European Union when it comes to going against terrorist attacks. Since the US has a better strategy in taking action against the Talibans, European Union would normally choose to have a free ride. This scenario leads to asymmetric-dominant Nash equilibrium found in the upper right cell of matrix b. When US and European Union decides not to take action at all, both countries will receive a pay-off equal to zero. (See Matrix b on page 8) When using the Asymmetric-Dominance Equilibrium, the US will gain more in case both countries will participate in taking action against the Taliban. This is in contrast to the case when the European Union chooses to have a free ride when US takes the full action. In this scenario, European Union will definitely not go through the fight alone since it be too costly for them to go through a war when US is only taking a free ride. Both countries will not win or lose anything in case both of them chooses not to take actions at all. Coordination Another type of game that applies on taking action against terrorist threats or attacks is called ‘coordination.’ In case both countries apply combined forces against the Taliban, both countries will receive payoffs equals to 2 [(4 x 2) – 6]. In case either US or the European Union decides to take the lead, it would mean that both countries would not get any benefits at all. The worst thing that could happen is the country that takes the lead alone will incur a benefit of –4. Therefore, if US take the lead alone, the benefit of US will be –4 while European Union will have 0. The same thing will happen if the European Union takes the lead alone. In this case, it would be wiser for both countries not to take actions at all. In this game, it would be beneficial for both countries to decide whether both of them will take full action or not take any action at all. (See Matrix c on page 8) When using this theory, it is unlikely for US and the European Union to take actions alone since it these countries would occur net loss than gain. Both would either choose taking full action together or simply not take actions at all. Important Considerations When Using a Game Theory in Analyzing Terrorist Attacks When using these game theories, it is important to consider all the proactive policies including the associated form of the game. Normally, countries that are involved in this kind of operations would look after the benefits that they would get after going through the terrorist attackers. Therefore, the country that is expected to have greater risks will receive bigger benefits than the other country. For this reason, in case two countries would negotiate on going after the attackers, matrix b is more likely to apply in the real case of Talibans in Afghanistan. In case the US and the European Union will not receive any special gains in solving this problem, then both countries would follow the game called ‘a Prisoner’s Dilemma’ which was presented in Matrix a. Given the present scenario wherein the European Union is not whole heartedly planning to join the U.S. in taking action against the Talibans in Afghanistan, it is more likely that the European Union is just sitting on the safer side and enjoying the free ride with the U.S. troops. Depending on what US and the European Union have agreed upon when it comes to fighting terrorism, if both agreed to take the Prisoner’s Dilemma, then chances are is that the European Union will never go to Afghanistan, risk the life of its local citizens, as well as putting the whole economy of the country into possible jeopardy in the future. I have commented on this part since the United States is most likely to receive more from the fight against the Taliban group. According to Sandler (2003), it is common that reactive responses would include deterrence, embassy fortification, etc. Deterrence means taking a protective action on possible target places to divert the possible attack somewhere else. It means that countries involved in taking actions on terrorist attackers and has the least investment on deterrence is expected to become an easy target of terrorist attacks. Usually, the most common targets are the embassy. In this case, the issue on race arises and is commonly noticed in the case of a Prisoner’s Dilemma. (Sandler, T. and Arce D., 2003) Unanswered Questions and Future Directions There are quite a lot of unanswered questions with respect to terrorism. The game theory can be used to clearly draw a picture on these unanswered questions. There are two important periods that has to be considered when determining the possibility of a terrorist attack. The most important point is to conduct an investigation regarding any past conflict between a suspected or known terrorist attackers and the US government. In case of a conflict between the two groups, there is a high probability that the US could be the major target of a terrorist attack. In case the US government receives information regarding terrorist threats, this information should not be taken lightly. In fact, it should be treated as incomplete information and should immediately conduct an investigation about it. Another issue that has to be given an emphasis is the fact that there are many game theories that can be used in examining terrorist attacks. Therefore, one must not simply rely on one method. This game theory method should also be applied in different case scenarios to give us a better understanding and analysis of the whole situation. Using only one scenario can sometimes be misleading and is not accurate. Conclusion There are a lot of factors that should be taken into consideration when analyzing and addressing a terrorist attack. Historical issues between the terrorist attackers and the governments are one area to look at whether a country is at risks of such attacks. In case there are two countries involved in solving the case of a terrorist attackers, there are three game theory models which can be used in determining the decision of the other country whether to help out in taking an action to fight against the terrorist attackers or just simply choose to take a free ride. Basically, the countries involved in fighting the terrorist attackers are after some net gains that they could receive in case they won the battle. If the offer is not beneficial to them, these countries would simply choose not to take actions at all. A game theory can be used in coming up with a good understanding of the facts behind terrorist attacks. Government policy makers can simply use the game theory models in coming up with a strategic interaction between active terrorist attackers and the governments. These theories can also be used in designing effective anti-terrorist policies. *** End *** References: 1 Hunter, R. (2007) ‘The Taliban Threat is Not Just America’s Burden’ April 12, 2007 Retrieved: April 15, 2007 < http://www.rand.org/ > 2 Lee, D.R. (1988) ‘Free Riding and Paid Rising in the Fight Against Terrorism’ American Economic Review, Volume 78 No. 2, 22 - 26 3 Lee, D.R. and Sandlers, T. (1989) ‘On the Optimal Retaliation Against Terrorists: The Paid-rider Option’ Public Choice. Vol. 61. No. 2, pp. 141 - 152 4 Sandler, T. and Arce D. (2003) ‘Terrorism and Game Theory’ Volume 34, Issue 3. pp. 319 – 337. September 2003. Sage Publications Read More