Rationality of Irrationality

Guessing North Korea's dangerous game. An interesting article applying Thomas Schelling's "rationality of irrationality" to recent North Korean moves.

Actually, Pyongyang seems to be following a familiar playbook in great-power politics. Its hardliners appear to have learned Thomas Schelling's teachings on the rationality of irrationality. Schelling saw the manipulation of shared risks as one of the best strategies to get one's way in international politics. Imagine, he suggested, a game in which you're walking on the edge of a cliff chained by the ankle to someone else. The first to cry uncle loses. What do you do?

 HT: The Monkey Cage