We all know the story of the lone autocrat at the top — we even saw a racist parody of it in “I’m Lonely,” a song in the movie “Team America: World Police” in which Kim Jong Il, the former leader of North Korea, laments his lot of “sitting alone” on his “little throne.” That’s […]
If someone punched you in the nose, what would you do? Does your answer change if he has a nuclear bomb? What if you do, too? President Trump’s war of words with North Korea over its ever-improving nuclear program is a battle dictated by the tenets of game theory. Each side postures, responds and anticipates, […]
In May 2015, the Pentagon publicly acknowledged that it had accidentally sent live anthrax to several labs across the United States — and to Osan Air Base in South Korea. North Korea reacted harshly. This was evidence of America’s plan to use weapons of mass destruction against their people, Pyongyang claimed in its demand for […]
Let’s all be thankful that FiveThirtyEight readers don’t control America’s nuclear arsenal. Last week, we published an article on the game theory of nuclear standoffs. That article included an interactive game meant to let readers pretend they were themselves participants in a showdown in which something could be gained, and much more could be lost. […]
Shall we play a game? Imagine that a crisp $100 bill lies on a table between us. We both want it, of course, but there’s no chance of splitting it — our wallets are empty. So we vie for it according to a few simple rules. We’ll each write down a secret number — between […]