A Game Theory analysis of the Syrian crisis

By Vasundhara Jain

As the Syrian citizens continue to be a part of one of the cruelest examples of modern-day humanitarian aggression, people in relatively comfortable scenarios, including us, continue to actively debate and passively discuss its implications and possible solutions. The “who”, the “how” and the “when” elements of any legitimate global action to mitigate this situation are shadowed by diplomacy. In September this year, US and Russia finally reached a consensus on compelling Syria to account for and systematically destroy its chemical weapons. The Syrian foreign ministry has confirmed that it would comply with the Chemical Weapons convention. Is this the end of the long war? Or is this just an inflexion point, from when on the Syrian unrest may take another, possibly worse turn? A solution can be found using the game theory approach.

We proceed by analyzing a two-person non-cooperative game, the two persons being the Syrian president Assad and the US president Barack Obama. We assume a case where perfect information is available to both (it is reasonable to assume this, as the global media indeed highlights the hits and misses of the two state’s leaders). We also assume that they are rational players (we will see what happens if Assad happen to be an irrational player), and try to maximize their gains. The use of chemical weapons by Assad to overpower the armed rebels in his state is the focus point of the entire debate. The use of chemical weapons is definitely a disutility for the Syrian population. Obama has expressed concern for the Syrian population and also for possible misuse of these chemical weapons on the USA in the future. Hence, chemical weapons lead to a negative payoff for US. If, on the other hand, US wages war, Syria would face the brunt of heavy artillery, and there will be loss of life and capital for a still recovering US economy. Assad, on the other hand, would be happy to use chemical weapons and assume absolute control over his state if Obama chooses not to wage a war. Hence, in case Obama does not intervene, the threat of rebels overtaking the state would make Assad to continue using weaponry. An evidence for this exists: Kofi Annan led a peace delegation earlier this year to convince Assad to undertake a ceasefire arrangement. The Syrian government agreed and tried to impose the same; the increased rebellion by the Free Syrian Army, however, meant that Assad resorted to taking the more aggressive stance in order to protect his government.

If Assad were to choose to disarm, he would either lose control on his state with US waging war, or with the rebels overpowering the state; hence his payoff would be negative. Moreover, sadly, within Syrian the religious and ethnic conflicts will rage on. If Assad happens to be overthrown by another authoritative organization, such as the Jabhat-al-Nusra (an opposition force in Syria and a designated terrorist organization that is an ally of al-Qaeda), then the game would continue to be played by a new dictator who would simply assume Assad’s place. Hence, keeping these in mind, and the fact that all the involved parties know the knowledge of these pay-offs, the equilibrium lies at Assad using chemical weapons and US abstaining from any military action. This also happens to be the present state of affairs.

(The first payoff is for Assad and the second for Obama)

What we really need is a long-term equilibrium where everyone is happy. And through this disarray and disappointing equilibrium point, we do have a chance to make that change. Let us now see how the involvement of other parties such as the UN and Russia make a difference.

As of mid-September, US and Russia, two of the five permanent members of the UN security council, have reached a deal to force Syria to systematically declare and eventually destroy its chemical weapons. There is scope for serious sanctions and military actions in future if Syria fails to comply. What is being done is that we are simply changing the pay-offs for Assad.

It is now a sequential game, where the first action would be taken by the World (US, Russia, UN, etc.), followed by Assad, to which the world may or may not react. By committing itself to world peace, states such as USA and Russia have made it clear to Assad that they would be on the left side of the sequential tree below as they have already committed their actions to such course. Assad can now assess the available choices of complying with peace norms or continuing weapon use. However, Assad would also be aware that as the world has already invested into being a committed protector of world peace and altered its own pay-offs, at the second stage if Assad continues using aggression, the world has a clear preference to undertake embargo and other military sanctions. Thus, in this case, Assad would disarm if he were making a rational choice.

However, Assad may very well be irrational and decide to stay aggressive, in which case the world would respond similarly. As of 31^st December, the deadline for Syria to give up it chemical weapons, has been missed and according to Lors Hovtun, Norwegian Defense ministry spokesperson, they are still on “high alert to go into Syria”. Standing from here, the only factor that determines the outcome to the Syrian crisis is whether Bashar al-Assad would be rational or not. A rational Assad should stick with disarming and a peaceful solution. An irrational Assad would only get himself, Syria and the passive/aggressive world to a detrimental outcome.

Vasundhara Jain is currently pursuing Masters in Economics at the University of Warwick, UK. She has interned at the State Planning Commission MP, where she specifically studied how the banking system met the growth needs of the state. She has volunteered in different capacities at several NGO’s, including ones for development of underprivileged children, and for HIV+ and rehab-seeking residents. . Her further interests including traveling, writing and playing squash. She blogs at www.vasujain.com, and can be contacted at vasu@vasujain.com. This article has been written in association with Ronit Mukherjee, University of Warwick. ronitm19@gmail.com