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wedrifid comments on Thomas C. Schelling's "Strategy of Conflict" - Less Wrong
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In two player zero sum games, vengeance (hurting self to hurt other more) is impossible, as are threats and destruction in general -- because the total score is always the same. They are ruthless in that to gain score you must take it from the other player (also eliminates cooperation), but there can be no nuking. If the game is variable sum (or zero sum with extra players), you again gain the ability to unilaterally and unavoidably lower someone's score (the score can be destroyed in variable sum games, or transferred to the other players in zero sum games, allowing for vengeance, punishment, destruction, team cooperation, etc.
I have reread the context and I find I concur with wedrifid_2009.
Vengeance is impossible, threats are irrelevant but destruction most certainly is not. Don't confuse the arbitrary constraint "the total score is always the same" with the notion that nothing 'destructive' can occur in such a game. What is prevented (to rational participants) is destruction for the purpose of game theoretic influence.
Consider a spherical cow in (a spaceship with me in a) vacuum. We are stranded and have a fixed reserve of energy. I am going to kill the spherical cow. I will dismember her. I will denature the proteins that make up her flesh. Then I will eat her. Because destroying her means I get to use all the energy and oxygen for myself. This includes the energy that was in the cow before I destroyed her. It's nothing personal. There was no threat. I was not retaliating. There was neither punishment nor cooperation. Just destruction.
ie. One of these things is not like the other things, one of these things just doesn't belong: