Nobel winner: theories on Iraq, global warming
It might have been tempting to shrug off the Nobel Committee's announcement that one of the winners of this year's economics prize was an 84-year-old retired professor few nonacademics have heard of. But Thomas Schelling has changed your life in ways you probably don't even realize, and right now he's working on ideas that could change your children's lives. Schelling's game-theory analyses of brinksmanship led to crucial practical improvements in international relations such as the installation of a hotline between the White House and the Kremlin. His research into the irrational behavior of addicts helped persuade Congress to raise taxes on cigarettes. Other thinkers have used his ideas as the foundation of two of today's bestselling books: Freakonomics and The Tipping Point.
The twice-retired professor (he retired at age 69 from Harvard to teach at the University of Maryland for another 13 years) took an hour away from fielding congratulatory phone calls to give U.S. News his analyses of the games people and nations are playing these days. Here are excerpts:
You did a lot of work on the concept of "pre-emptive war." What do you think about the situation in Iraq?
I don't know enough. When I used to theorize about East-West intercontinental nuclear relationships, that was all very simple: You've got two parties and nuclear weapons. During the war in Vietnam, I found that I didn't want to talk too much about it because I just didn't know enough. I can say that I am somewhat in despair about Iraq. I haven't totally despaired. . . . But I don't really understand enough about the politics of the Sunnis and Shiites. I do have the impression that the U.S. has bungled the situation terribly. But what the prospects are for getting out of it successfully? I just don't know.
Given the administration's early emphasis on weapons of mass destruction, wasn't this a pre-emptive war?
No, no. Pre-emptive means the enemy is about to strike, so you strike first. Iraq was never going to attack us or Kuwait again. You could probably say that if you thought a country was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons; you might use the word pre-emption to say, "We will go in and find and destroy the weapons." You might call that pre-emptive. But I think this was mainly an effort to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Of course, they haven't found the weapons of mass destruction yet.
It is hard to know whether the administration was deluded about that or deluded itself. They wanted so badly to have an excuse, they came to believe sincerely in the weapons of mass destruction business. . . . On the other hand, I think that it is not a good idea for the United States to feel that it can just unilaterally decide to go in and pre-empt anybody who is about to get nuclear weapons. I think there is a good chance Iran will get nuclear weapons, and we have to be thinking about how we will live with that. I think that if it ever gets nuclear weapons, it will first of all guard them very, very carefully. It won't go around giving them away or selling them or anything of that sort. And I think they will quickly perceive the best use of any nuclear weapons they have is deterrence . . . to let it be known that if the United States ever starts bombing Iran, something bad could happen. But I don't think their nuclear weapons are going to become aggressive. They are going to feel these weapons are precious because they may intimidate the United States and deter the United States from doing anything drastic in Iran. And I'd like to encourage them to think that way. I also hope they will understand the importance of keeping very good custody of their nuclear weapons and not let them fall into the wrong hands. Not even let them under the control of the military, just in case the military decides at some stage to make a coup or something.
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