Prisoners’ Dilemma

Suspect Ali el Haj is isolated from the rest of the suspects. Is it for security reasons, or is Mehlis playing games?

The economist John Nash (portrayed in the movie Beautiful Minds), invented what is known as “game theory”. One of the best ways to explain the dynamics of that theory is through the example of “The prisoners’ Dilemma”. A situation that might be taking place with Gen. Ali El Hajj and the others right now.

The prisonners’ Dilemma goes as follows (see source):

Imagine two criminals arrested under the suspicion of having committed a crime together. However, the police does not have sufficient proof in order to have them convicted. The two prisoners are isolated from each other, and the police visit each of them and offer a deal: the one who offers evidence against the other one will be freed. If none of them accepts the offer, they are in fact cooperating against the police, and both of them will get only a small punishment because of lack of proof. They both gain. However, if one of them betrays the other one, by confessing to the police, the defector will gain more, since he is freed; the one who remained silent, on the other hand, will receive the full punishment, since he did not help the police, and there is sufficient proof. If both betray, both will be punished, but less severely than if they had refused to talk. The dilemma resides in the fact that each prisoner has a choice between only two options, but cannot make a good decision without knowing what the other one will do.

The thing with the four captured generals is that, although they might be partners in crime, they don’t trust each other. So it’s interesting to see what will come out of this. The question is: can the interrogators develop a decent set of incentives/threats to make them talk?