Pakistan may become a player in the evolving Mideast drama

Some of the actors in the deepening drama in the Middle East live either on Pakistan's volatile borders or not far from it. Iran is one of Pakistan's four immediate neighbours. It is involved in creating and helping develop what it calls the "axis of resistance". The Houthis who have been challenging the authority of Saudi Arabia operate in Yemen, which is only a short distance from Pakistan, separated by a narrow body of water from the Balochistan coast. Which way this drama will develop and how the actors on the stage adjust their positions overtime? In reflecting on this difficult question, some analysts have turned to "game theory", a branch of mathematics that predicts how the actors in a game develop their tragedies.

Game theory is a way of analysing the strategies that different players – be they militaries, business rivals or poker players – choose to achieve the best possible outcome for themselves. How Pakistan and India have worked out their relations offers several good examples of the way the game theory has worked in the case of these two neighbours. A recent example of this was when India bombed what it believed were terrorist camps in the northern areas of Pakistan that, according to New Delhi's thinking, may have orchestrated the deadly attack on the Indian forces in Kashmir. Pakistan responded by sending its fighter jets to fly in the Indian airspace without attacking any target on the ground.

Daniel Sobelman, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is using game theory to understand the tit-for-tat operations in the Middle East. His forthcoming book, Axis of Resistance: Asymmetric Deterrence and Rules of the Game in Contemporary Middle East Conflicts, adopts that approach. According to him, wars – both fighting them and preventing them – are essentially games of prediction. Amanda Taub has applied the game theory to understand how the present Middles Eastern conflict is proceeding. She writes for The New York Times. In an article for the newspaper titled, "The Impact of Game Theory on Israel, Iran and the Risks of Escalation", published on October 5, she writes, "When it comes to war, each side needs to forecast how the other will react to a given move in order to weigh its costs and benefits. And by credibly demonstrating that the costs of aggression would be too high to be worthwhile, even bitterly opposed enemies can deter a catastrophic war."

When the support of the United States is factored in, there is no doubt that Israel is much stronger than Iran. To create some balance, the Iranians adopted the strategy of creating proxies in the region: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Houthis in Yemen. "Hezbollah in particular was a big part of that threat," said Emma Ashford at the Washington-based Stimson Center. "It was, 'If you do something against Iranian interests elsewhere in the region, Hezbollah will launch a massive rocket attack from Lebanon. And you know that you don't want to cross that line'."

So under the unwritten rules of the game, Israel's recent attacks on Hezbollah should have resulted in a devastating response from the armed group. According to Sobelman, "There should have been thousands of Israeli deaths. There should have been high rise buildings going down in Israel." But that did not happen in part because of the actions Israel took to degrade Hezbollah's fighting capacity and in part because Tehran did not want to escalate the confrontation to the point that an all-out war was the result.

The moves by Israel on various fronts in the Middle East, although using the weapons supplied by America, were done without the knowledge of Washington. There were visible indications of the American unhappiness. One unexpected development was the cancellation of the trip Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, was set to make on Wednesday, October 9. The story by Missy Ryan and her colleagues written for The Washington Post that appeared in its edition of October 9, 2024 under the heading "Cancelled Israeli visit a sign of tension ahead of expected Iran counterstrike", provided some analysis of the tension between America and Israel. There was hope among the officials in Washington dealing with Iran affairs that in the Gallant-Austin discussions, Israel would reveal its intentions. The two secretaries have formed a close relationship, having spoken more than 80 times over the few years the Biden administration has been in control.

"While the two countries have coordinated closely, Israel has repeatedly conducted strikes on regional adversaries without giving the United States advance notice, including a recent operation targeting Hezbollah operatives with exploding devices." The reference here was to the small bombs placed in pagers and mobile phones that went off when they were used. "U.S. officials have complained that such attacks may endanger U.S. troops in the region. Biden meanwhile has faced criticism within his party for his stance on Israel and the steady supply of weapons from Washington. While Biden and his aides have backed Israel's right to respond to Iran, Biden has publicly urged Israel to eschew attacks on Iranian oil facilities, which could destabilize world energy markets. US officials have likewise counseled Israel against striking facilities linked to Iran's nuclear program which Israel has long deemed an existential threat."

Using game theory, we may be able to see a possible involvement of Pakistan in the conflict. One way that could happen is the use of the large force presence the United States has in the area including those stationed on the ships. It has three aircraft carriers and some 40,000 troops present in the area. If Israel comes under great pressure which it views as existential, the United States may send in its troops in the places from where the threat to the Jewish state is coming. This may include movement into Iran with the aim of destroying the manpower and equipment of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the IRG. At that point the authorities in Tehran may decide to withdraw their threatened force into the neighbouring states of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They may do that without being invited by the countries in the neighborhood. If that were to occur, it is hard to predict which way the authorities in Islamabad and Tehran would react.