Studying at the Swedish Defence University gives you an odd way of thinking, where everything can be modelled through the lenses of nuclear strategy, international relations (IR), and the tactics employed in various contemporary and historical conflicts. These are also not only subjects for the lecture hall and library, but for the lunch room and nights out on the town. Such topics are of course interesting for their own sake, but they also reveal something about how to deal with conflict more broadly --- as one force diametrically opposed to the interests of the other.

Conflict is not only present in the high-stakes world of inter-state warfare, but in every facet of life. Studying how conflict appears and is resolved is therefore useful for dealing with all kinds of conflict on a personal level. This is especially true for the more political aspects of war. This is why Sun Tzu's The Art of War is so popular (especially in business circles), war and conflict is always deeply political and something that primarily exists in the social realm between people.

Nuclear Strategy for Individuals

Nuclear strategy (id est strategies involving nuclear weapons) is in many ways the perfect form of analysis for high-stakes conflicts that are not easily solvable. Much nuclear strategy was developed during the cold war; when neither the USA nor the USSR saw peaceful coöperation between the two as a major option. At the same time they realized that a direct conflict would doom humanity, and did their best to avoid one. The same sort of ideas are useful when having to, for example, coöperate with a colleague or classmate on a shared assignment, where performance is more important than a generally cordial relation.

There is nothing rational about nuclear strategy, but it is an attempt to approach the matter with a somewhat rational lens. Conflicts (frozen or hot ones) involving nuclear weapons are always matters of perception and emotion just as much as they are matters of empirical dangers and capacities. These are not opposing forces, but must be used together to full fill your aims.

The most famous strategic concept is of course MAD --- Mutually Assured Destruction. This is (literally) the nuclear option; the threat that if your opponent acts, you will massively retaliate and leave the both of you in a sorry state. Directly referencing MAD is however not all that useful, because the whole idea is to avoid crisis to begin with. Instead you have to deter action by your opponent such that they do not dare act to begin with. This is done through the "Three C's":

1. Capability. The ability to actually carry out a threat, even if you do not intend to. It is of course possible to "bluff" a capability that you do not actually posses, but that will dampen your...
2. Credibility. How likely you are seen to carry through your threats, and how likely you are to merely be bluffing.
3. Communication. Most important of all is of course communication. If you do not say what you demand, and what you intend to do if those demands are not met, there is no point in the previous two aspects.

The Three C's quickly rule out certain strategies: Telling your boss "if you don't give me 100000 Euro bonus I will burn down the building" is not a credible threat, even if communicated clearly and something within your capabilities, because it is a clear overreaction and moreover does not give either one of you much room to maneuver. If you do not get your bonus you would have to burn down the building or else lose all your future credibility (and you are probably not willing to burn down the building). At the same time your boss is probably not willing to give you a 1000000 Euro bonus and will likely be forced to retaliate (by firing you).

What you need to do is to deliberately give your opponent an off-ramp. This might seem counterintuitive --- why help your opponent? But it is intended to increase the likelihood of any deal, rather than a very unlikely "perfect" one. You might instead ask for a more modest sum and be armed (for Capability's sake) with a job offer from a rival company. That way your boss has an ability to save face ("it didn't cost that much" and "they were going to leave!") instead of being forced to fire you.

It is a paradox of nuclear warfighting that more nuclear weapons leads to less destructive strategies. If you only have one nuclear weapon you are most likely going to use it against a large, rich city (a strategic target); if you have very many small bombs you instead target military installations and fleets (tactical targets). In such a situation the probability of using any nuclear weapons is of course higher, but the corresponding destruction is also lower. These two factors combined lead to a much more credible threat. For interpersonal relations this means that conflict becomes more likely the lower the stakes are, but that such conflict is much lower-level that it would otherwise be --- neither party has to escalate to MAD straight away. If you do not have a job offer in hand you will not be as likely to ask for more money.

Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes

The aspects discussed above are not unique to nuclear strategy, they are also ideas used in deterrence theory and game theory more broadly, ^[1] but they were largely born out of nuclear war because of the incredible stakes involved. But there are older aspects of warfare that are all-too-commonly overlooked.

One of the most influential treaties on modern military thinking was the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz's ^[2] posthumously published work On War. His most famous aphorism is of course that "War is the continuation of politics by other means", something that is --- as we have established --- due to the social and interpersonal nature of war. It is therefore that war is merely the final form of a conflict or debate; one possible method by which to force your adversary to act in the way that you wish. On War is a very political work, but its most interesting comments are on how to carry out war itself. His most succinct quote is thus:

In war everything is simple, but everything simple is hard.

This is the summary of his concept of friction --- applicable to almost all form of human organisation. For Clausewitz, this was the act of merely moving armies from point A to point B. Doing so was (perhaps predictably) much harder to do than merely giving an order. What exactly will cause this friction is impossible to predict, but managing it is what makes war difficult. This is well-worth remembering when dealing with large groups of people; it is the accumulation of small, individually surmountable problems that make big things hard. This is true regardless of if the problem is waging a continental-scale war, planning a party, or constructing infrastructure.

Another major aspect of conflict is the fog of war, the chaos and complexity of a conflict that makes it impossible to know exactly what is happening as the battle is in its midst. This is naturally true of other things as well --- the gathering of intelligence to act upon is the first and most critical step in managing any crisis or unforeseen development. Recently there has been talk of this aspect "disappearing", particularly in the Russo-Ukrainian context, but this is merely a shift in the fog from the tactical to the operational and strategic levels.

This ties naturally into the last aspect, the fundamental element of chance present in war. The outcome of a battle is always unpracticable, and while you can change the odds to be in your favour you will never know how an engagement will turn out. The Prussian general Moltke therefore said the following:

The tactical result of an engagement forms the base for new strategic decisions because victory or defeat in a battle changes the situation to such a degree that no human acumen is able to see beyond the first battle. In this sense one should understand Napoleon's saying: "I have never had a plan of operations." Therefore no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.

"[A] plan of operations" here means a plan on the level between the strategic --- the large-scale allocation of resources and ultimate political objectives --- and the tactical --- the boots on the ground view of how to win specific battles. You never know how a given battle or confrontation will play out, and so planning is wasted on the operational level.

To be clear, this does not mean that all planning is unnecessary. Both the strategic level (what do you want to achieve?) and the tactical (how do you increase the odds of a favourable outcome?) levels benefit tremendously from planning. But keeping Moltke's (and Napoleon's) words in minds means always including a level of flexibility in your expectations. The enemy always gets a say in war, and because the nature of war is inherently antagonistic you do not have any way to influence your opponent other than acting yourself. For your actions to actually matter you must put yourself out there and act (in a philosophical sense) in a relation to the world.

It is very common to overlook this dialectical aspect of conflict. We like to think that we are fully in control Even when we can foresee hardship, we like to think that we are good at predicting what hardship will come our way. ^[3] This is true even when there is no intelligent opponent (and merely Clausewitz' friction) but is made worse when our adversary is able to move against us. A classic example would be how the French built the Maginot line along the Franco-German border, leaving a weak point in the Ardennes that in hindsight the Germans had to use.

Diplomacy

The board game Diplomacy is my favourite table-top game. ^[4] Playing out in an alternate pre-WW1 world, each player controls one of the great powers of Europe trying to take control over the continent for themselves. There are no fixed alliances, and players all take their turns at the same time --- having to decide in advance whether or not to coöperate (or betray one another).

It is a game that has some very interesting implications for computer play, as negotiation and deception are integral aspects of gameplay. There have been some very interesting projects, most notable Meta's Cicero agent back in 2022. But particularly interesting is how Diplomacy can never be a solved game. France is clearly the strongest nation, ^[5] but will still easily lose if ganged up on. The true gameplay is not on the board, but in the minds of your fellow players.

Playing Diplomacy is also a wonderful way to test yourself and practice your persuasion as well as capacity for handling setbacks. You will almost inevitably be betrayed in Diplomacy, and the situation may very well seem hopeless when it finally happens. But it is in situations like that where it is important to remember that conflict is always social, and can be changed depending on how the facts are framed.

Betrayals often beset betrayals (what IR-theory calls bandwagoning) because a weakened opponent is easier to conquer. When this happens, it is a true test of one's resolve. The hour may appear dark, and initial projections likely show your imminent demise within a few in-game years. This will also become the case if you merely play the board; but success comes from recognizing how to shift the nature of the board itself. In Diplomacy this comes from splitting enemy alliances by appealing to the losing party of your invaders. Real life is surprisingly similar --- groups are always composed of parts with clashing interests, and in many cases the inter-group dynamics are much more powerful than any outside threat merely by function of proximity.

I have seen players with only one supply center remaining ^[6] claw themselves back to becoming one of the more dominant countries on the board. The only way to do this is through grit, determination, and the help of others.

It is equally important to avoid losing the initiative when things are in your favour as it is to avoid destruction when it is not. This may be even harder to do than merely surviving, as the natural state is to perceive a successful power as a threat in any zero-sum game. To do this you have to continuously support an image of goodness to your allies and a aura of invincibility to enemies. If either (or both!) of these begin to crumble it leads to a cascading risk of betrayal and collapse that culminates the bandwagoning situation described above. Machiavelli describes this scenario quite well in The Prince:

It is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved? It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.

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Footnotes

1. Thomas Schelling, a famous nuclear strategist, was also the recipient of the Nobel Memorial prize in economics in 2005 "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game theory analysis". ↩︎

2. Clausewitz is especially impactful in the European military tradition; at West Point Clausewitz's Swizz contemporary Antoine-Henri Jomini is more popular. ↩︎

3. Think of trying to win an earlier argument in the shower. You are not only in a controlled environment (your imagination) and under no stress, but you are also fully in control over how your opponent responds. The element of chance in conflict eliminates this, and makes responding quickly and elegantly in the moment equally as important as responding correctly. ↩︎

4. For an introduction on how to play, see A Beginner Guide to Diplomacy. ↩︎

5. Demonstrated by having the highest win-rate in recorded games. ↩︎

6. Practically dead, only surviving through the mercy of stronger nations. ↩︎