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Why is Kasparov still alive?
One loyal MR reader wrote in the comments:
He'll [Kasparov] be fine. Killing him would be too bad a move in terms of PR.
But that is exactly my worry. Putin has many would-be enemies. What better retaliation than to do something evil and make it look like Putin is possibly at fault? (That is in fact one theory about the polonium poisonings.) Maybe you think Putin has already signaled credibly that he wouldn't kill Kasparov, but if that is the case then he could in fact turn around and order it done and not take the blame. Either way the equilibrium looks like assassination. The going rate for an assassin simply isn't that high and surely somebody has at least that much at stake in the outcome.
When I was a little kid I saw TV coverage of the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I recall wondering why every famous politician, or at least every reachable famous politician, isn't assassinated. Or why isn't the equilibrium quantity of product sabotage -- accompanied by options trading of course -- very high? The sabotage doesn't have to hurt people to lower share prices.
If some people find it worthwhile to send spam, why don't many more? Is the cost structure really that heterogenous on the production side?
I might add these are important questions for understanding a future of extreme nuclear proliferation.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 13, 2007 at 12:21 PM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
I've always found it surprising that Supreme Court justices aren't being knocked off. Maybe people are less crazy than I thought.
Posted by: sean at Nov 13, 2007 12:29:33 PM
For product sabotage to really make sense, you'd have to mount huge option exposures and that may be noticed by the SEC and the like...
Posted by: Cynical Masters Student at Nov 13, 2007 12:29:40 PM
"When I was a kid... I recall wondering... why isn't the equilibrium quantity of product sabotage ... very high?"
That is a remarkably clever thing for a kid to wonder.
Posted by: chris at Nov 13, 2007 12:36:35 PM
Most assassins are identified and caught. Therefore any motive for political assassination really needs to be able to survive the identification and capture of the assassin. And many (most?) assassination attempts fail, so a would-be employer of assassins must plan for the assassin to fail and be caught -- "once X is dead, it won't matter if people know I did it" isn't really a viable view.
Even extremist suicide terrorists seem bound by these rules -- most attempts fail, and the perpetrators are identified. Most employers of terrorists are not Osama bin Laden, able or inclined to hide out in caves for years.
I suspect that that's the nature of any future nuclear ubiquity as well (and I do believe that that's inevitable -- what other 40's-era technology has remained effectively suppressed?): A focus on reliable nuclear forensics to be employed after any (most likely unsuccessful) nuclear attack.
Posted by: Grant Gould at Nov 13, 2007 12:37:38 PM
Assassination is less popular precisely because it makes a martyr out of the person killed, and frequently strengthens the movement that person was a part of. Far more effective is somehow exposing the person as a fraud or betrayer to the cause.
Having said that, I think the reason why GWB hasn't faced many serious attempts despite widespread antagonism towards him and his policies is because Dick Cheney is so much more despised. I'm sure it's no accident that in times of crisis Cheney is the one on lockdown in some undisclosed location.
Posted by: Christina at Nov 13, 2007 12:44:35 PM
Grant Gould said:
Most assassins are identified and caught.
How do we know this? This is an honest question. I don't know much about the subject.
Posted by: nathan at Nov 13, 2007 12:49:57 PM
Christina's comment reminds me of Chris Rock's very funny bit about why there won't be a black vice president...
Posted by: Ron at Nov 13, 2007 12:59:51 PM
I really don't think Kasparov is a threat to Putin at all. More of a slight, possibly even humorous nuisance.
Posted by: John Goes at Nov 13, 2007 1:29:53 PM
I have a hard time understanding how MAD functions
after someone pushes the button. Once one party’s missiles are in the
air, wouldn't the pareto optimal outcome be for the recipient to grin
and bear it?
It the taste of vengeance really so sweet?
Posted by: James S at Nov 13, 2007 1:42:30 PM
"Maybe you think Putin has already signaled credibly that he wouldn't kill Kasparov, but if that is the case then he could in fact turn around and order it done and not take the blame." Well, yes, now that you point it out. It seems that even studying the pure evil of immunological and parasitic arms races was not enough to make me reflexively cynical enough to be an economist.:-|
I think Kasparov is an annoyance chiefly because he has a high enough profile for his statements to be taken seriously. From Putin's point of view, then, offing him does not help the problem, since it tends to raise his profile. So who among Putin's enemies would rationally calculate that $25k, a five percent chance of exposure, and a five percent chance of other random bad things (like not complete exposure, but violent people getting enough of a hint what happened that the violence escalates and hurts you) is a price worth paying for inconveniencing Putin?
Someone could say loosely that "Russian politics is a zero sum game," but I'm not sure the approximation as a zero sum game is so good that there are a lot of people who are selfishly deeply tempted to harm Putin. I don't think it's just squeamishness at murder, either. I expect that in our corrupt world, enterprising covert operatives have a reasonable number of opportunities to collect horribly incriminating video/audio evidence on their rivals or the key associates of their rivals. If you just want to weaken your rivals, collecting such evidence and unconditionally leaking it (no blackmail or anything) would seem to be a purer play than killing someone that the rival will be suspected of killing. How often do such leaks of incriminating evidence happen?
And even more, I think the difference between 90ish% deniability and 100% deniability is important. I think we might see a lot more covert operations, violent and otherwise, if people knew how to approach 100% more closely.
Posted by: William Newman at Nov 13, 2007 1:44:11 PM
If the goal of Putin, as explained by Kasparov in some interviews, is to keep world energy prices high and thus Russia relatively prosperous (which is supported by his efforts to stir trouble in the Middle East by means of an extremely friendly relationship with Iran - side benefit being he appears important by defying the United States) he is quite unlikely to kill Kasparov. It gains him little but makes Russia appear lawless and might scare away foreign capital.
Posted by: Ben R. at Nov 13, 2007 2:21:04 PM
Heck, Putin needs to have some credible, but easily beaten opponents for the presidential race.
Kasparov is one, with no chance, given Putin's 70+% rating. Plus, he further splits the credible
opposition, given that the Communists are out there also, taking part of that 30%, presumably with
Zyuganov again as nominee. Killing him will do nothing as some other hack will be put up who will
have no chance, but might have a better chance if Kasparov were not running.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 13, 2007 3:15:58 PM
Most assassins, at least in the United States whose history I am more familiar with, are lone nuts. An economic model that does not take notice of that is going to be quite off.
Posted by: TGGP at Nov 13, 2007 3:21:16 PM
kasparov's not dead because he has no domestic support in russia, does not have any inside information on the regime, and therefore does not represent a threat to putin.
that he's popular in western circles is probably helpful to putin - as he serves as a distraction away from more credible opposition.
Posted by: duh at Nov 13, 2007 3:23:03 PM
This is exactly the same rationale that Putin gave when journalist Anna Politkovskaya was killed: Why would Putin have such a thing done when it would mean nothing but bad PR? It might be more likely that one of his opponents did it, knowing Putin would be blamed, directly or indirectly.
As much as I think Putin is corrupt scum, he's a good enough politician to realize you can't just go killing journalists, or Kasparov.
Posted by: emerson at Nov 13, 2007 3:27:04 PM
Of course all assassinations in the US are by lone nuts.
Posted by: John Goes at Nov 13, 2007 3:28:09 PM
Kasparov is nice for Putin to have around, much as Bhutto is nice for Musharraf to have around. Putin and Musharraf can point to their existence and say, "See, we tolerate dissent!" But they are ineffective and impotent opposition, more useful alive than dead.
Posted by: Robert Franklin at Nov 13, 2007 3:29:57 PM
OK, maybe K. is helpful to Putin, but in the argument that is *exactly why someone else might want to kill him*!
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Nov 13, 2007 4:12:22 PM
You make a good point, maybe then offer Kasparov state protection then?
Not sure he'd accept it.
The thing that pops to my mind thinking about what you're talking about are anarchists. They existed and flourished around the late 1800's early 1900's. They killed top politicians acros the Western world. They disappeared completely after World War I if I'm not mistaken. Probably something to do with the general populace experiencing the horrors of warfare, and just lost support for more voilence. People were probably drained, obviously only 20 years laters people's batteries recharged enough for another round of world war. But I digress.......
Posted by: Ahmed Al-Sabah at Nov 13, 2007 4:42:30 PM
This is why economics is so great.
Posted by: John Goes at Nov 13, 2007 4:43:32 PM
OK, maybe K. is helpful to Putin, but in the argument that is *exactly why someone else might want to kill him*!
But there's a huge risk. Putin is not without investigative and intelligence resources. So someone plans to kill Kasparov to embarrass Putin. The conspirators are discovered by Putin. Whether they are caught before or after the attempt, they face unpleasant personal consequences on top of which Putin is strengthened by showing that he is vigorous even in the defense of his opponents.
In fact, suppose Putin tries it, as Tyler suggests. Presumably there will be various cutouts and levels of security in the plot. Surely someone down the ladder might suspect that Putin prefers the outcome described above to a successful assassination.
Wheels within wheels.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Nov 13, 2007 5:36:16 PM
I have to guess that the reason there aren't more assassinations is that the expected cost to the assassin is so high. Even if most assassins are not caught and thwarted (I have no idea of any numbers here), the penalty is high enough for the ones who do get caught to make it an undesirable undertaking. Of course this suggests a very high price for such services, perhaps so high that it is undesirable for would-be employers of assassins. The assassins who get caught seem to be of the "idealogical wacko" variety, probably because they place a very low price on their own lives, relative to the success of the assassination. Of course, there aren't likely to be many idealogical wackos willing to commit to killing someone like Kasparov, mainly because he isn't perceived to pose that big a threat to anyone.
It's also entirely possible that most people just don't hate anyone enough to want to kill them. I think this is debatable, and that if you lowered the cost of killing someone (say, offering assurance that there will be no consequences), a lot more assassinations would take place. Hooray for high transactions costs!
Posted by: d.cous. at Nov 13, 2007 5:48:37 PM
Since even the United States was heavily infiltrated by Soviet spies, most people will believe Putin has a high degree of domestic intelligence. No matter what the outcome, people will think Putin knew and/or directed events, and almost any scenario becomes plausible.
Like 50,000 monkeys at a keyboard typing Shakespeare, with enough comments we could write the next Tom Clancy novel.
Posted by: 8 at Nov 13, 2007 5:56:54 PM
Dear 8,
I have it on reliable authority that the next Tom Clancy novel will be written by a single monkey.
Posted by: Scott O at Nov 13, 2007 6:33:23 PM
"But that is exactly my worry. Putin has many would-be enemies. What better retaliation than to do something evil and make it look like Putin is possibly at fault?"
Anyone got a decent opinion on whether this happens in politics. A democrat pretends to be a republican but bastardize the ideas to make them look bad, or vice versa?
Posted by: Jay at Nov 13, 2007 8:11:21 PM
