Pinter over Pamuk I may learn to live with, but why on earth did the Nobel committe choose to honor Schelling?

In his next book, Arms and Influence, published in 1966 but conceived a few years earlier, he [Schelling] went further. “The power to hurt,” he wrote, “can be counted among the most impressive attributes of military power. … To inflict suffering gains nothing and saves nothing directly; it can only make people behave to avoid it. … War is always a bargaining process,” and one must wage it in a way to maximize “the bargaining power that comes from the capacity to hurt,” to cause “sheer pain and damage,” because they are “the primary instruments of coercive warfare.” [Slate]

I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies: at least it was the Economics prize, not Peace. That they reserve for peacemakers like Kissinger and Arafat.

Vietnam as a dynamic game of incomplete information. It’s all making sense now.