Watching an Equilibrium Die

Our standard vocabulary of strategic analysis is built from a small set of primitives. Interest, balance, deterrence, alliance, equilibrium. These primitives have served well for most of the postwar period. They predict well enough when systems are stable and accurately explain, after the fact, when systems are not. Their limitation is more specific than imprecision. It is structural. Our vocabulary treats coordination as a consequence of interest, agents cooperate when it serves them or defect when defecting serves them more, and treats the breakdown of coordination as the visible result of interest realigning. This makes the frame predictively sharp in periods when the underlying structure of an arrangement is intact and only its surface negotiations are in motion. It also makes the frame nearly useless in periods when the underlying structure itself is being reorganized, because the classical frame possesses no concept for structure as such. It has nouns for agents and verbs for their actions; it lacks a vocabulary for the property that allows those arrangement to persist.