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Lion, Dung Beetle Gaming

In response to my request for some asymmetrical Game Theory more applicable to today’s conflicts than the Cold War variants, John Hawks says he’ll be posting more on the subject in coming weeks. He offers this in the meantime:  

“Asymmetrical contests have been one of the big interests in game theory. Asymmetries not only with respect to strength or force, but also with respect to information. I’m more familiar with the evolutionary literature than international relations, naturally, but the stuff from dung flies and lions often has surprising connections to human behavior…

“Lions … have this thing where a male will hang around a female before she goes into estrus, and as long as that male stays there no other males will fight him — even if they are bigger. But if he leaves for even little bit, another male may approach the female, starting a fight. The idea is that the male lion near the female is basically investing a cost in waiting around, and has an incentive to fight harder to defend his access. The other male lions lose by fighting him, because he is unlikely to yield easily. So there’s an asymmetry of costs that drives a stable system.”