THE TWOFOLD MEANING OF BRINKMANSHIP: EXPLAINING STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY IN RUSSIA’S NUCLEAR POLICY

Discussions and debates about whether or not the role of Russia’s Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons underpins a so-called “Escalation to De-Escalation” strategy culminated in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, which declared the need for deploying a new low-yield nuclear warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles in order to prevent Russia from escalating to the limited nuclear level and successfully terminate the conflict. While unofficial evidence barely suggests that Russia may exhort to its NSNWs in order to stave off the adversary in crisis situations, common Western discussions on Escalation to De-Escalation revolve around the alleged existence of an “offensive” Escalation to De-Escalation strategy. Thereby, Moscow would pre-emptively escalate to the limited nuclear level over NATO's Eastern flank in order to take over it while leaving Western countries without no escalation options, given the doubts surrounding the ability of B61s’ delivery systems at going beyond Russian air-defence. However, while Western countries are often busy with self-deterrence, thus perceiving immediate threats at each deployment by the adversary, they tend to overlook strategic manipulation of deployed capabilities. That is why analysis of ambiguity surrounding Russian NSNWs have been less popular in Western contexts. Based upon critical analysis of Escalation to De-Escalation and classic deterrence and escalation studies, this paper argues that ambiguity surrounding Russia’s NSNWs is part of a brinkmanship strategy, which inadvertently triggered destabilizing dynamics in US-Russia relations. The article proceeds as follows. First, an introduction sets the scene and the aim of the article, as well as the methodology, including the scope and background of facts. Second, the Escalation to De-escalation debate is broken down in the attempt of shedding light on the ambiguity it builds on. Third, it is argued that ambiguity surrounding NSNWs is strategically exploited according to Schelling’s concept of brinkmanship, though exacerbating the risk of inadvertent escalation with Western countries. Finally, a conclusion wraps up the argument and indicates its implications.

Strategic manipulation in judgment aggregation under higher-level reasoning

We analyse the incentives of individuals to misrepresent their truthful judgments when engaged in collective decision-making. Our focus is on scenarios in which individuals reason about the incentives of others before choosing which judgments to report themselves. To this end, we introduce a formal model of strategic behaviour in logic-based judgment aggregation that accounts for such higher-level reasoning as well as the fact that individuals may only have partial information about the truthful judgments and preferences of their peers. We find that every aggregation rule must belong to exactly one of three possible categories: it is either (i) immune to strategic manipulation for every level of reasoning, or (ii) manipulable for every level of reasoning, or (iii) immune to manipulation only for every kth level of reasoning, for some natural number k greater than 1.

Sensory and choice responses in MT distinct from motion encoding

Macaque area MT is well known for its visual motion selectivity and relevance to motion perception, but the possibility of it also reflecting non-sensory functions has largely been ignored. Manipulating subjects' temporal evidence weighting revealed multiple components of MT responses that were, surprisingly, not interpretable as behaviorally-relevant modulations of motion encoding, nor as consequences of readout of motion direction. MT's time-varying motion-driven responses were starkly changed by our strategic manipulation, but with timecourses opposite the subjects' temporal weighting strategies. Furthermore, large choice-correlated signals were represented in population activity distinctly from motion responses (even after the stimulus) with multiple phases that both lagged psychophysical readout and preceded motor responses. These results reveal multiple cognitive contributions to MT responses that are task-related but not functionally relevant to encoding or decoding of motion for psychophysical direction discrimination, calling into question its nature as a simple sensory area.

Pig-Humans and Human-Pigs

This chapter examines the body of Dayak myths regarding humans and pigs who travel between their respective villages, transform into the “other” in the process, and face attendant dangers as well as rewards. The fragile boundary between human and pig identities is reflected in the traditional belief that spirits may perceive humans as pigs and so hunt and kill them. Dayak address this threat by sacrificing domestic pigs in their stead, the logic of which is underpinned by the shared dualistic natures of humans and pigs: pigs can be both wild and domesticated, and humans can be both their domestic selves and — in the eyes of spirits — wild pigs. Pig–human substitutions and transformations are a form of mimesis. Omens from the spirit world that foretell good or ill events are mimetic, as is the ritual theater by which ill omens are neutralized. Human understanding and strategic manipulation of these mimetic relations is ontological in character, recognizing the existence of multiple realities. Mimesis helps the Dayak to see that the way they view themselves may not be the way others view them; and it depicts awareness of other views — other ontologies — as literally a matter of life or death.

Histological and histomorphometric study of the cranial digestive tract of ostriches (Struthio camelus) with advancing age

The present study was conducted to determine the histological and histomorphometric variations in the tongue, oesophagus, proventriculus, and gizzard of ostriches (Struthio camelus) with regards to the sex and advancing age. A total of 40 healthy ostriches of both sexes and five age groups; young (up to 1 year, 1 to 2 years and 2 to 3 years) and adult (3 to 4 years and above 4 years) in equal numbers (n = 8) were used in this study. The organs under study were collected immediately after slaughtering the birds. Overall, the colour, shape, weight and various dimensions (length, width, and diameter) of the collected organs were recorded. The mean values of the gross anatomical variables of the studied organs increased (P < 0.05) among all the young groups (i.e., from 1 to 2 years, 2 to 3 years). Similarly, the organs under study in the adult groups (birds aged 3 to 4 years and above 4 years) grew (P < 0.05) as well. However, the differences between the adults were not significant. The histological analysis and histometric measurements were conducted on paraffin embedded tissue sections with Image J^® analysis software. The statistical analysis revealed a significant increase in the thickness of the different tunics of the digestive organs in all the groups except those the adult groups. These findings may be of importance for the strategic manipulation of feed and nutrition to enhance the growth rate and also to diagnose pathological processes.

Affektpolitik und Freundschaft in Saber del mal y el bien von Calderón de la Barca

The article analyses the relationship between friendship and politics in the comedia de privanza Saber del mal y el bien by Calderón de la Barca. It claims that Calderón addresses the controversial discussion in 17th-century political theory on whether monarchs should have friends by staging three different models of power: First, the comedia presents a monarch, whose wise analysis and strategic manipulation of the feelings of his courtiers turn him into the ideal sovereign. Secondly, the play unfolds a cosmology of power in analogy to the constellation of the sun and the stars. The position of the king as the sun is challenged by the ascendant power of his favourite. Thirdly, Calderón questions the relevance of mundane power relations through the metaphor of the theatrum mundi. It is through friendship as a dialogic form of knowledge that these three models of power unfold. [J]untemos hoy dos caudales: yo pondré contentos míos, poned vos vuestros pesares; yo venturas, vos desdichas; y así vendremos iguales a saber los dos a un tiempo de glorias y adversidades, porque quiero que seamos los dos amigos tan grandes que dejemos admiradas a las futuras edades.

Catching Cheats: Detecting Strategic Manipulation in Distributed Optimisation of Electric Vehicle Aggregators (Extended Abstract)

We consider a scenario where self-interested Electric Vehicle (EV) aggregators compete in the day-ahead electricity market in order to purchase the electricity needed to meet EV requirements. We propose a novel decentralised bidding coordination algorithm based on the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM). Our simulations using real market and driver data from Spain show that the algorithm is able to significantly reduce energy costs for all participants. Furthermore, we postulate that strategic manipulation by deviating agents is possible in decentralised algorithms like ADMM. Hence, we describe and analyse different possible attack vectors and propose a mathematical framework to quantify and detect manipulation. Our simulations show that our ADMM-based algorithm can be effectively disrupted by manipulative attacks achieving convergence to a different non-optimal solution which benefits the attacker. At the same time, our proposed manipulation detection algorithm achieves very high accuracy.