Prisoner's Dilemma Applied to International Treaty Interpretation

            Two prisoners are brought into a precinct.  Separately, the individuals are approached by an attorney to negotiate a ‘deal’ for prison length.  These prisoners are presented with options: defect or cooperate.  In defecting, prisoner A rats out prisoner B.  In cooperating, prisoner A does not rat out prisoner B, in assumption (or hope) that prisoner B will also cooperate.  Prisoner B is given mirrored options.  The payoffs depend on the option the prisoners choose.  If prisoner A betrays B while B cooperates, prisoner A comes out on top; if both prisoners cooperate, they both win- a mutual benefit; when both rat out each other, both lose; and, when prisoner A cooperates, but B betrays, prisoner A loses.  If this sounds familiar, it is because it is a popularized international relations (IR) theory coined as the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and stems from rational choice-Game Theory in political science academia.  In recent, however, this dilemma has found scholarship in explaining international law of treaties. 

            Because there is no domineering international legislature or centralized lawmakers, it remains very difficult to implement international law.  Thus, treaties become monumental in maintaining international harmony and cooperation.  They can be thought of as an international public service/good. 

            As mentioned, treaties are designed to encourage international relations among nations.  Therefore, when nations became signatory to a treaty (and upon ratification of a treaty), they make a public commitment to abide by its rules/articles. 

Nuclear Iran Does Not Increase Stability: 8 Reasons

In the July issue of Foreign Affairs, international relations scholar and founder of neorealism, Kenneth Waltz, published a column not only defending nuclear deterrence theory, but also supporting the Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon (part of the column can be found on the website of USA Today). Waltz identifies three possible futures that could be had depending on the actions of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. I find his analysis selective and the publishing of such opinions as legitimate in both the academic and mainstream press, without acknowledging the disastrous consequences that are possible in the case that his presumptions are false, to be reprehensible. I thus write this response.

One of the biggest issues with Waltz’s analysis is his complete dismissal of the incomprehensible dangers of nuclear weapons. He writes, “A palpable sense of crisis still looms,” and then dismisses it by saying, “It should not.”¹ In the words of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation president David Krieger, “fear is a healthy mechanism when one is confronted by something fearful.”² The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs killed 200,000 initially and many more in the months and years after. The current warheads are much larger than those two, plus new reports discuss how the nuclear famine that would follow a limited nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India could kill over 1 billion human beings.³ Luckily for us, Mr. Waltz is not worried. He thinks, “A nuclear-armed Iran would probably be the best possible result of the standoff and the one most likely to restore stability to the Middle East.” I beg to differ.