In the 1980s, political scientist Robert Axelrod ran a series of computer-based tournaments to identify the best strategy in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma scenario. The surprising winner of these tournaments was the simplest one: the tit for tat strategy.
An iterated prisoner’s dilemma is just the classic prisoner’s dilemma played out repeatedly.
In the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma, two players can either Cooperate or Defect. Mutual cooperation gives both moderate rewards, mutual defection punishes both, and if one defects while the other cooperates, the defector gets the highest payoff while the cooperator gets the lowest. Read more here.
In the iterated version, this interaction is repeated many times, allowing for strategies that adapt based on past actions, modeling real-world relationships more accurately.
In Axelrod’s tournaments, participants submitted various strategies for this repeated game, and these strategies competed against one another. The simple tit for tat strategy outperformed all the complex ones.
Here’s what made tit for tat so effective:
- It was nice—cooperation was its default.
- If the other party defected, it responded in kind (tit for tat). It wasn’t a pushover or a pacifist.
- It was forgiving. If the opponent cooperated after defecting previously, it let go of the past and resumed cooperation.
- It was predictable—its response was easy for the opponent to reason about.
India seems to be following this very strategy in response to the recent Pakistani state-sponsored Pahalgam terror attack. I’m no defence or geopolitical expert, but if you go by Occam’s Razor which says that the simplest explanation is often the right one—India’s response looks like a classic tit for tat approach.
We retaliated with Operation Sindhoor, taking down terror bases deep inside Pakistan (tit for tat). Every attempt by Pakistan to escalate further was met with a measured, proportional response (again, tit for tat). At the same time, we’ve consistently emphasized our willingness to cooperate and de-escalate, if the other side is willing. The Ministry of External Affairs reiterated this message in every press briefing and official communication. Not once did the Indian state indulge in false bravado or chest-thumping like Pakistan did. Instead, throughout, we remained dignified, calm, clear, and firm. We’ve given the ceasefire a real chance—demonstrating that we are, indeed, willing to forgive.
This is a welcome shift from the past, when Pakistani state sponsored terror attacks were met with nothing more than strong words and no visible negative repercussions.
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