The Strategic Triangle: An Elementary Game-Theoretical Analysis

Abstract

The concept of a“strategic triangle” is useful in an analysis of the internal logic of the relationship between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. The preconditions for a triangular relationship are that each player recognize the strategic salience of the three principals, and the relationship between any two will be affected by each player's relationship to the third. Within the triangle, there are three distinct pattern dynamics: the ménage à trots, consisting of mutually positive relationships among all three; the stable marriage, consisting of a bilateral relationship excluding the third, and the romantic triangle, consisting of one pivot player playing off two suitors. Each of these pattern dynamics has specific rules of rational play. The shift from one pattern dynamic to another is a function of the attempts of the players to freeze a given configuration through commitment to a treaty or a common ideology, interacting with periodic crises that test their commitments.

Theorizing on Relations across the Taiwan Strait: Nine contending approaches

“…For Dittmer, the relation between any two triangular actors can be either positive (amity) or negative (enmity), resulting in four types of triangles: ménage a trois (three positive relations), romantic (two positive and one negative), marriage (one positive and two negative), and unit-veto (three negatives). 44 Lo follows Dittmer's analysis, and postulate s that when the number of negative relations in a strategic triangle is even, then one gets a stable triangle. If the number of the negative relations is odd, then the structure is unbalanced , and the triangle is unstable.…”

Building Sustainable Couples in International Relations

“…Tripolar systems have long been identified as a particularly conflictprone and unstable type (Waltz, 1979, p. 163;Schweller, 1998), but the particular logic of strategic triangles has been formalized in much finer details by Lowell Dittmer (1981). Following Dittmer, conditions for a triangular game to exist are:…”

Sino-Australian Relations: A Triangular Perspective

“…The most frequent previous application of the triangular logic was to the relationship between China, the Soviet Union and the US during the last two decades of the cold war, when the Nixon administration succeeded in taking advantage of the growing alienation of China from the Sino-Soviet alliance to form a triangular relationship in which Washington had better relations with Beijing and Moscow than either had with the other (Dittmer 1981(Dittmer , 1987(Dittmer , 1992. This created a 'romantic' triangle, permitting Washington to forfend further escalation of SinoSoviet hostilities and to extract concessions from each 'wing' (for example, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and America's withdrawal from Vietnam).…”