“Beware the nested game.” It is one of the least-known but most useful adages to keep in mind when following international affairs, and it is especially relevant now that Lithuania has announced a blockade of sanctioned Russian goods.
A nested game is what it sounds like — a game within a game. It recognizes that the actors in most real-world settings are not unified and have conflicting motives. The classic example is the failure of a proposed Middle East peace deal because some hard-line faction sponsored a terror attack or an assassination. The agreement was never just the two sides dealing with each other; each side was also dealing with its own internal conflicts.
The nested game theory can help increase understanding of the Russian war against Ukraine too, and unfortunately it shows that the risk of escalation is increasing. Most assessments of the war measure the relative military strengths of each side. That is surely important — but so are the nested games. Russia and Ukraine are not monolithic. Each country encompasses many diverse interests and opinions, especially if “Ukraine plus its allies” is defined as one side of the conflict.
