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Researchers at Yale University have found that the more allies a country has, the less power it has. The authors say the findings have potential implications for current events.
The scientists published their results in the July issue of IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica (JAS), a joint publication of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Chinese Association of Automation (CAA).
The scientists developed a simple, yet sophisticated, computer game to examine relationships between countries and the resulting strategic environments."We have developed a power allocation game to study countries' strategic interactions in a complex environment," said Yuke Li from Yale University. Dr. Li and Prof. A. Stephen Morse, the Dudley Professor of distributed control and adaptive control in electrical engineering at Yale University, used the game to ask if having more allies in a networked, strategic environment will always be beneficial to a country in terms of power allocation outcomes. "The answer is, surprisingly, no. This is especially so for a country without sufficient power to mediate between the conflicts among its potential allies."
https://phys.org/news/2018-06-allies-decrease-country-power.html
[Abstract]: The power allocation game on a network: a paradox
At the rate at which the current POTUS is alienating allies, the USA will become even more powerful, as per the above article.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:05AM (8 children)
It always amazes me how people non-ironically use the term paradox.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:26AM (7 children)
Paradoxically, there's nothing to be amazed in this regards.
At least, no more than accepting the dispatch of a 'cargo' by ship and a 'shipment' by truck (and I say this as a statement beyond ironic, deep into the (grin)-ing territory)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:57AM (2 children)
Amazed = to marvel != paradox
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:21AM (1 child)
"Para", on the side, like your reasoning process. "Dox" more properly "doxa", thought, opinion. So it, ironically is something besides your opinion!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @10:54AM
You can look at a volcano going off, a rocket launch, etc and be amazed without having anything to do with a paradox.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @03:51AM (3 children)
> a 'cargo' by ship and a 'shipment' by truck
Yeah, right. Next you'll be telling me that I should be parking my car on a driveway and driving it on a parkway. I'm not falling for your word games!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:59AM (2 children)
Doesn't that 'whoosh' sound you hear so many times a day bother you?
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:48AM (1 child)
Probably no more than your whooshes bother you. Pretty clear that GP understood GGP's post perfectly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @06:05AM
Can't hear them. Tinnitus, see?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:12AM (7 children)
The game, and the conclusions reached, presume that the programmers understand the effects of variables ranging from public opinion, to nationalism, to perceived threats, to actual threats - and much much more. Further, it is presumed that those programmers successfully created algorithms to reflect all of those intangible variables.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:49AM
Oh, how presumptuous are you today, my dear!
I can only assume you had a good sleep, as usual.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday June 27 2018, @03:06AM (4 children)
I don't know if its necessary to accurately program how the sausage is made
Those are after all, merely the tools by which agreements are hammered out, rather than any indication of what was agreed.
Lots of allies tie a country's hands on many issues and decisions, simply by appeals to not rock the boat. I don't find this study even mildly illuminating. We've been watching this happen for decades. In one sense, it is civilization at work. Networks of relations calming the the various countries, like friends helping other friends stay on the wagon, or what ever.
The down side of this is things have a tendency to get quite out of hand occasionally as all the nations lean on another nation till they reach the breaking point. (Like the EU countries leaned on Greece monetarily in a game of monopoly that Greece could never win, or even play on the same level. I'm sure there are other examples, perhaps more contentious than that).
Not sure the choice of hammers or screwdrivers matter when your friends are hanging you out to dry.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:06AM (3 children)
I suspect they are measuring individual power, which is all great but pales in comparison to group power, which is why allies are made in the first place.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:37AM (2 children)
Group power is only useful when everyone in the group will work toward a common interest even when it conflicts with their individual interests. When have countries been known to give up a strategic advantage, even to an ally?
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:53AM
They have, closest example being permanent members of UNSC, and UNSC in general.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday June 27 2018, @06:02AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:44PM
I won't trust it unless it's based on several play-throughs of Civ. Civ 4, of course.
(Score: 2) by dast on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:46AM (6 children)
This particular paper aside, I often wonder if we won't be studying the mathematics of government some day.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:48AM (1 child)
yo, pi = 3
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @03:46AM
government has the electrolytes that pi craves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:54AM
Did you consider toilet paper math: https://i.imgur.com/DpMzzYm_d.jpg [imgur.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:55AM
But of course we will.
And who could be better prepared to study power than the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (pretty much as the current TFA case)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @03:07AM
See Asimov, Hari Seldon...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldon [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:40PM
SimCity was originally created as a simple model of how a city worked by people associated with a bunch of urban planners. That's only the original SimCity, of course, not the later releases...they could be similar, but I have no knowledge of their development, and suspect that there were mainly changed to make the game more interesting rather than more accurate.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @03:08AM (6 children)
You can't tell me Canada is the weakest country in the world just because they have a lot of friends. They could absolutely hold their own against the combined police departments from a small to medium sized state for a few days.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday June 27 2018, @03:20AM
But isn't that the point? They don't have to hold back anyone, because 1. They have lots of allies and 2. Those allies spend alot of time trying to prevent a recurrence of the events immediately after 28 June 1914.. (even if they do manage to send member states broke now and again.)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday June 27 2018, @03:36AM (4 children)
As in Russia in 1944, it could be a big mistake to invade Canada in winter.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:35AM (3 children)
You may say that, in hopes that they will not know that summer in Canada is only a feint that will trap you in Winter, eh?
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday June 27 2018, @06:02AM (2 children)
What day is designated to be summer in Canada this year?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by kazzie on Wednesday June 27 2018, @07:42AM (1 child)
Sorry, it was last week: you missed it.
That means it's winter again. So don't invade now. Please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @03:54PM
What day are you coming down to burn Mar a Lago? I'm supposed to bring the marshmallows.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:28AM (1 child)
The more you have the more you get weighed down by them.... Trump may be on to something there, but he's probably gone a bit too far in cutting all ties.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:37PM
Would the fifty US states all be stronger on their own without being part of a larger whole?
Would we have gone to the moon?
What makes the US a superpower?
Maybe having allies makes you "weaker" because you are constrained from engaging in egregious behaviors that your allies would find repugnant. Like slavery. Or recognizing 87 (or 89?) genders.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 5, Informative) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:33AM (13 children)
The original "paradox of power" is that the more power you have, the less control you have of events, which is to say, the less power you have. Now that truly is a paradox, especially for the RealPolitikers among us. I recommend
Now having more allies may mean having less power, but given the paradox of power, the less power you have, the more actual power you actually have, Just probably means you can't do whatever you want with it. (See, Trump Department of State for illustration.)
(Score: 1) by Captival on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:46AM (10 children)
That's either insightful genius or total nonsense. Leaning towards the latter here.
If more power is actually really less power, then real more power is less is more is less is more. Therefore the opposite is true!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:59AM (2 children)
You have begun the path of understanding, my young Jedi! Do not try to bend the spoon, that is impossible. Only realize the truth, there is no Trump. Also, realpolitikers tend to exhibit two-dimensional win-lose thinking, and think they are Ricardo Montalban. So the only thing to do is take off and nuke them from orbit.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:31AM (1 child)
Aren't "win-lose" two opposite directions of a single dimension?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 27 2018, @06:28AM
Khaaaaaaaaannnn!!!!!!! Khaaaaaaaaaaaann!!!!!!1!
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:59AM (1 child)
Nothing is everything.
The tighter your grip the more slips through your fingers.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:13AM
Depends on what you are gripping really. If I grip too tightly it stops slipping at all. And it hurts.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mykl on Wednesday June 27 2018, @06:10AM (1 child)
USA: GDP $19.39 trillion, 326m people. Permanent member of UN Security Council, member of G7, G20, OECD, NATO, ANZUS
North Korea: GDP $25 billion (0.12% of USA), 25m people. Friends with Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, China. Everyone else hates them.
Kim Jong Un and the Trumpinator met as equals recently. I think there's something to this.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:50AM
> Kim Jong Un and the Trumpinator met as equals recently. I think there's something to this.
Note: there's a difference between "US and NK are equals" and "Kim Jong-Un and the Trumpeteer are equals".
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday June 27 2018, @06:31AM (2 children)
Doubleplusgoodful.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 27 2018, @07:42PM (1 child)
Fido! You Cretan!
(Score: 3, Funny) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday June 30 2018, @09:43AM
Not even close. I'm more one of the Histri (or, as you would know us, Ιστρών έθνος - fighting against unfair copyright legislation for two millenia).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @09:09AM (1 child)
Yes, you can have a state of laws or you can be a king of one. The problem is this is using two different meanings of "power" in different places of the supposed paradox.
1. power - an means of coercion
2. power - as means of getting your way
For example, you can kidnap a driver and tell them to drive you somewhere. That is coercion. But you can also get some money and give it to a professional driver to do the same, and they will be glad to do it. That is the 2nd version of power. Cooperation gives you ability of getting 2nd power. But if you backstab your friends, well, then your only means will become coercion and then you get no power at all - no friends to cooperate and everyone will at very least avoid you so you can't even grab anyone to coerce ;)
The entire point of politics is to get your way even if it looks like you bend over a few times. But if you always see politics as means of coercion, well my friend, you will be alone and isolated, like North Korea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @01:44PM
I suspect that Dick Turpin [wikipedia.org] had a problem each time that he wanted to hail or hire a comfy stagecoach, as well. Goes with the job.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:44AM (4 children)
The way I read the explanation, I see that it weakens you if your allies are not mutually allied. In other words, the worst you can do is to fuel animosities between your allies.
So how is Trump doing on that scale?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:35AM
Excellent in the fueling animosities levels he achieves.
Misdirected, as instead of fueling them between US allies, it fuels them between US and the allies [reuters.com] (with friends like this, ...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:26AM (1 child)
That's actually an interesting point. It seems the media and establishments everywhere claim to hate Trump, so if he is fostering commonalities between the various US allies, is he actually strengthening the US by giving his various allies common ground?
The US is too big and history too deep for any of them to drop it as a ally, so encouraging them to similar viewpoints may end up with the US leading a more unified alliance.
Also, we here in the boonies (Oz in my case) understand that Trump is temporary, just like every other politician, and that, in time, this too shall pass away. The US is not in any danger of losing its allies, regardless of what the screaming heads on the boobtube claim.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @02:43PM
Agree. This is why term limits are absolutely vital to prevent de-facto monarchies or dictatorships.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:44PM
So how is Trump doing on that scale?
Well on the one hand our allies are now more mutually allied.
But on the other, they're mutually allied against us.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @07:31AM (1 child)
you band together so that the combined strength is enough to balance any outside threat, rather than each country wasting huge resources in order to balance potential coalitions of outside threats.
what the fuck is wrong with these people?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:56AM
Halle-fucking-lujah. That was my first thought as well. It's disturbing how many people seem to have trouble with the entire concept of an "ally" :/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @03:18PM (1 child)
So, it looks like there actually isn't strength in diversity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:17PM
There is-- because there is strength in numbers. They just may add up to be bigger than your number. Zombies seem to work well together even though they are made up of a bunch of relatively unskilled resources of diverse origins! I can think of outsourcing companies comprised of the same sort of undead, although perhaps all arising from a common location. They do absorb other groups within their ranks as they extend and extinguish, though.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @03:29PM (3 children)
I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but this works for me on a personal level too. Being married is like being allied (sort of). However, after living on my own for twelve years now I find:
I can make decisions faster, without endless negotiation/recrimination.
I possess greater wealth.
I enjoy my work without being pressured to seek greater ambitions.
I come an go whenever and wherever I please.
I experience less stress overall.
Seems like allies can be a drag on health, wealth and liberty, both for countries as well as individuals.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday June 27 2018, @05:49PM (1 child)
An interesting analogy. It's also statistically true that married people live longer than singles. And there are a few other advantages that you overlooked.
OTOH, if you are constantly in a power struggle with your spouse, then the advantages may well be nullified. To me this speaks more of a personal problem than a problem with marriage itself.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @06:09PM
This may just a problem with 'allies' that have conflicting goals. As the article mentions, conflicts between allies detract from the advantages gained from allying with them. At some point when the goals of two+ allies diverge enough, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of the alliance. The same could be analogous to a marriage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @09:23AM
Yes, but your problems sound like marriage problems not problems with marriage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:18PM
Rabbits came to Eagles to ask for alliance in their war against Foxes.
Eagles politely declined, saying "Rabbits, call us into alliance when you start a war against Frogs, for then you too will be able to do something in the war."
Unnecessary and non-useful alliances will be betrayed on the first crisis.
Anyway, I am not afraid for strong players. The weak ones who try to not be food of the strong will often make alliances with their enemies, or even with all sides stronger than themselves, just to find they fell into a "double bound" situations where they can't really side with anyone.
And even if you chose just one strongest player as ally, but he also allied your foes, if your foes are more important to your great ally, you will soon learn why snake owners breed rodents, too.
Game theory is hard ... or just unaccommodating.