On the strategy of pure conflict—the zero-sum games—game theory has yielded important insight and. advice. But on the strategy of action where conflict is mixed with mutual dependence—the nonzero-sum games involved in wars and threats of war, strikes, negotiations, criminal deterrence, class war, race war, price war, and blackmail; maneuvering in a bureaucracy or in a traffic jam; and the coercion of one’s own children—traditional game theory has not yielded comparable insight or advice. These are the “games” in which, though the element of conflict provides the dramatic interest, mutual dependence is part of the logical structure and demands some kind of collaboration or mutual accommodation—tacit, if not explicit—even if only in the avoidance of mutual disaster.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 202