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saturn comments on Thomas C. Schelling's "Strategy of Conflict" - Less Wrong
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The entire civilised world (which at this point does not include anyone who is still a member of the US government) is in uproar. Your attempts at secret diplomacy are leaked immediately. The people of the UK make tea in your general direction. Protesters march on the White House.
When do you push the button, and how will you keep order in your own country afterwards?
What I'm really getting at here is that your bland willingness to murder millions of non-combatants of a friendly power in peacetime because they do not accede to your empire-building unfits you for inclusion in the human race.
Also, that it's easy to win these games in your imagination. You just have to think, I will do this, and then my opponent must rationally do that. You have a completely watertight argument. Then your opponent goes and does something else. It does not matter that you followed the rules of the logical system if the system itself is inconsistent.
A model of reality, which assumes that an opponent must be rational, is an incorrect model. At best, it is a good approximation that could luckily return a correct answer in some situations.
I think this is a frequent bias for smart people -- assuming that (1) my reasoning is flawless, and (2) my opponent is on the same rationality level as me, therefore (3) my opponent must have the same model of situation as me, therefore (4) if I rationally predict that it is best for my opponent to do X, my opponent will really do X. And then my opponent does non-X, and I am like: WTF?!