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A Differential Game Related to Terrorism: Nash and Stackelberg Strategies

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Abstract

The question of how best to prosecute the ‘war on terror’ leads to strategic interaction in an intertemporal setting. We consider a nonzero sum differential game between a government and a terrorist organisation. Due to the state-separability of the game we are able to determine Nash and Stackelberg solutions in analytic form. Their comparison as well as the sensitivity analysis deliver interesting insight into the design of efficient measures to combat terror.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Business Administration, University of Vienna, Brünner Strasse 72, 1210, Vienna, Austria

    A. J. Novak

  2. Institute for Mathematical Methods in Economics, Dept. ORDYS, Vienna University of Technology, Argentinierstrasse 8/105-4, 1040, Vienna, Austria

    G. Feichtinger

  3. College of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    G. Leitmann

Authors
  1. A. J. Novak
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  2. G. Feichtinger
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  3. G. Leitmann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. J. Novak.

Additional information

Communicated by F.E. Udwadia.

This research was partly financed by the Austrian National Bank (OeNB) under grant No. 12138 “Optimal Design of Counter-Terror Operations”.

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Novak, A.J., Feichtinger, G. & Leitmann, G. A Differential Game Related to Terrorism: Nash and Stackelberg Strategies. J Optim Theory Appl 144, 533–555 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10957-009-9643-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10957-009-9643-z

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