Chicken Game

The game theories are very interesting to understand and precisely easy to relate. These theories are fascinating for me because now I can relate many current happenings to the strategic moves learned in the class, and I can imagine, to some extent, the next moves or their reason. The theories in detail may sound complex, but I am gaining confidence to imagine many of them. One of the interesting sequences I follow and its closeness to a game theory is described below.

My interests in world politics grown from my teenage. I follow the relations among different countries, especially the superpowers, and I always wondered on the reasons behind the volatility and power plays in different contexts. Learning about the game of chicken helped me understand a recent power play in the South China Sea. The South China Sea is the sea portion with few islands surrounded by China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and many other countries. This portion has strategic importance since it’s extensively used for trade traffic and strategically important to dominate in the region. About $5 trillion in trade moves through the area annually and there are also thought to be large deposits of oil and gas. The islands in the middle of the sea have been proclaimed by different countries, and the problem started when China began its reclamation and construction work on one of its claimed island. Ascertaining growing influence of China in this important region, the United States sent a steady stream of warships into the area claiming its right to navigate the high seas. The purpose of this stunt is to remind China that freedom of navigation in the region will remain the norm, even though China claims almost the entire South China Sea as its sovereign territory. Several other countries, including the Philippines, have competing claims and a passive aggressive conflict is slowly starting to develop.

My learning experience about the game of chicken theory was super exciting. The game of chicken is an influential model of conflict for two players in game theory. The name "chicken" has its origins in a game in which two drivers drive towards each other on a collision course: one must swerve, or both may die in the crash, but if one driver swerves and the other does not, the one who swerved will be called a "chicken," meaning a coward. In the case of South China Sea conflict, the two main drivers are the United States and China. Both powerful militaries are posing aggressively to emphasize their claims to the territory and hence provoking by means of strong military presence in the disputed region. Both sides strive to not to be a chicken in the game.