Hypergame theory in two-person conflicts with application to the Cuban missile conflicts

In this paper, hypergame models are developed for two-person conflicts in which at least one of the players has misunderstood the nature of the dispute. The hypergame approach provides a comprehensive methodology that describes the role and effect of misperceptions throughout the conflict modeling and analysis. Because many of the general principles and definitions used in hypergame theory can be difficult to explain for n-person conflicts, a major objective of this paper is to present clearly the basic concept from hypergame theory for the case of two-person conflicts. By modeling the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 as different levels of two-person hypergames, the efficacy of hypergame analysis for use in practical applications can be fully appreciated.