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Game Theory is easily defeated by an unpredictable opponent, i.e., any effective leader.

Game Theory combined with probability works...gives estimate of success looking forward.

See Methods of Operations Research by Morse and Kimball ISBN 9-781376180039 for use by Allies in WWII.

Further developed by Japanese researchers after WWII to industry sectors and politics.

Based on F. W. Lanchesters 1916 book "Aircraft in Warfare"...using the Battle of Trafalgar plan by Nelson in 1805..(Nelson was outnumbered by the combined Spanish and French fleet)...Lanchester establishes the laws of individual combat and general mechanized warfare.

Nelson was outnumbered, with 27 British ships of the line to 33 allied ships including the largest warship in either fleet, the Spanish Santísima Trinidad. To address this imbalance, Nelson sailed his fleet directly at the allied battle line's flank, hoping to break it into pieces.

The plan worked almost perfectly; Nelson's columns split the Franco-Spanish fleet in three, isolating the rear half from Villeneuve's flag aboard Bucentaure. The allied vanguard sailed off while it attempted to turn around, giving the British temporary superiority over the remainder of their fleet.

The ensuing fierce battle resulted in 22 allied ships being lost, while the British lost none.

Since Trump is a voracious reader with a great memory I am sure he knows.

Re: Battle of Trafalgar

Okay, I’m sure a lot of y’all will think I’m crazy, but your post brought to mind an experience that happened to me this past March.

I had gone for a type of hypnotherapy session that I have done for the last 3 years with the same practitioner. I had never had anything strange happen during the sessions like what happened then. While I was “under,” I started seeing things. Stuff I could have never imagined in my life. Things I had never even seen in movies. It finally got so bizarre that I spoke up and asked her, “What is a ‘broadside?’ I mean, I know what it means if you get broadsided by a car….but why are all these people screaming ‘Broadside!’?” She had no idea what I was talking about, so I started telling her what I was seeing. I was standing on the deck of an old-timey sailing ship, looking across the water at another massive tall wooden ship with sails, painted in a blue-ish gray and white with at least 3 (possibly 4) levels of cannon. And then another ship, and another. And then men all around me screaming “Broadside, Lef-tenant! Broadside!” Smoke and gunfire, smoke so thick it was choking my throat and stinging my eyes. A man in a long blue-black coat half-carrying/half dragging another man who was in a red coat with white straps and who was missing both legs at the knees. Bodies laying on the deck. Pieces of bodies on the deck. Looking down at my feet and seeing blood so thick on the deck that it made me slip and almost fall. Men wearing redcoats and strange hats (like top hats) with long rifles. Another man in a long dark coat who seemed to be some type of officer as he had ornamentation on his shoulders and lapels and wearing (what I would call) an outrageously large hat. This man was facing towards me, leaning over some type of rail or equipment, screaming so hard that the tendons were popping out in his neck, and yet I couldn’t make out a sound he was saying. And then, watching a cannonball in slow motion fly over my head, hit the mast, snap it, and the mast and all the rigging fall forward onto the deck and off to the side. (She told me that my head moved, as I was following something flying through the air.) shortly after this, I found myself on a beach where people were picking up bodies on the shore and putting them into litters and carrying them off. I looked down at a body in the sand that was so mangled that I could see the entire spinal column and rib cage exposed.

It was such a horrifying yet fantastic vision that I spent the next 2 weeks researching “famous British naval battles” and “British Navy uniforms” to figure out what I had seen. I was perplexed by the men in the red shirts… of course, I know that “redcoats” are British soldiers, but why were they on this ship? And none of the Navy uniforms I found were red?

Anyway, after hours of reading and watching documentaries, I pieced it all together. Those were the Royal Marines, who were always onboard British Naval ships. The huge ship I saw pointing its cannon towards us (in a “broadside,” I.e., firing all the cannon at once) was either a French or Spanish Man of War. The guy in the large hat was an officer (possibly the Lieutenant everyone was screaming at), and the hat was a clue to the time period, which pointed to the Napoleonic. I have to admit, I have been to Trafalgar Square and I have seen the statue of Lord Nelson, but I had NO idea that Trafalgar was a sea battle! (Yeah, public school pretty much skipped over anything between the Revolution and Civil War.) The last thing I learned was that following this spectacular sea battle, there was an even more spectacular storm which sank many of the ships that had survived the battle and washed the bodies up along the Spanish coast line!

Sorry for the long segue way, but it was definitely one of the most amazing visions I’ve ever experienced.

Thank you, spokeshave, for this excellent analysis.

I too have studied certain topics of operations research in depth, and made them a central part of some significant businesses where I had an executive role. These included queueing theory and graph theory; however, when I read pure game theory books and articles it always impresses me as sterile academics.

Based upon the thoughtful posts of yourself (spokeshave) and Sobieski at Kahlenberg Mtn., maybe I should take another look sometime.

(Such as in the event I am put in charge of nuclear war strategy. :) )