War Of Attrition
The Moonshot Budget
The Moonshot Budget is a War Of Attrition scenario. The core lesson: When you cannot verify a rival's true progress, uncertainty pushes you toward spending more, not less, to avoid losing the whole prize. You advise a national space agency locked in an undeclared race against a rival superpower to land a person on the Moon before the end of the decade. Your rival has already scored dramatic early firsts, and your own leadership wants to know exactly how close the rival's program actually is before committing to the massive, sustained budget increases your engineers say are necessary. DecisionPlay maps the players, payoffs, and equilibrium dynamics that shape how this situation typically resolves.
The situation
You advise a national space agency locked in an undeclared race against a rival superpower to land a person on the Moon before the end of the decade. Your rival has already scored dramatic early firsts, and your own leadership wants to know exactly how close the rival's program actually is before committing to the massive, sustained budget increases your engineers say are necessary. The trouble is that your rival's program is almost entirely secret. You have fragments of intelligence, contradictory rumors, and no reliable way to know whether they are years ahead of you or quietly struggling with the same problems you are.
Background
Every year your agency does not know for certain how close the rival is, which makes it hard to argue confidently for spending at the level your engineers want. But underestimating the rival and losing the race outright would cost far more, in national prestige and political consequence, than overspending on a program that turns out to have had more room to spare than you assumed.
What this reveals
Uncertainty about a rival pushes rational actors to overspend, not underspend
When you cannot verify how far along a competitor actually is, the safer bet is usually to invest more than you would under full information, since underinvesting risks losing an all-or-nothing prize entirely, while overinvesting against a weaker-than-feared rival merely costs more than strictly necessary.
How to counter it: When facing an opponent whose true position you cannot verify, resist the urge to assume the best case for yourself, and weigh the cost of underpreparing against a genuinely capable rival more heavily than the cost of overpreparing against a weak one.
A question to sit with
Have you ever invested more effort into a competition than turned out to be necessary, simply because you could not verify how strong your competitor really was? Would you make the same choice again?
Frequently asked questions
- What game theory concept does The Moonshot Budget illustrate?
- The Moonshot Budget illustrates War Of Attrition. When you cannot verify a rival's true progress, uncertainty pushes you toward spending more, not less, to avoid losing the whole prize.
- What is the situation in The Moonshot Budget?
- You advise a national space agency locked in an undeclared race against a rival superpower to land a person on the Moon before the end of the decade. Your rival has already scored dramatic early firsts, and your own leadership wants to know exactly how close the rival's program actually is before committing to the massive, sustained budget increases your engineers say are necessary. The trouble is that your rival's program is almost entirely secret.
- What does The Moonshot Budget reveal about how people decide?
- Uncertainty about a rival pushes rational actors to overspend, not underspend. When you cannot verify how far along a competitor actually is, the safer bet is usually to invest more than you would under full information, since underinvesting risks losing an all-or-nothing prize entirely, while overinvesting against a weaker-than-feared rival merely costs more than strictly necessary.
- How do you avoid the trap in The Moonshot Budget?
- When facing an opponent whose true position you cannot verify, resist the urge to assume the best case for yourself, and weigh the cost of underpreparing against a genuinely capable rival more heavily than the cost of overpreparing against a weak one.
- What is the research behind The Moonshot Budget?
- Every year your agency does not know for certain how close the rival is, which makes it hard to argue confidently for spending at the level your engineers want. But underestimating the rival and losing the race outright would cost far more, in national prestige and political consequence, than overspending on a program that turns out to have had more room to spare than you assumed.
- How long does The Moonshot Budget take to play?
- About 7 min, at advanced difficulty, across 3 decision points. It runs in your browser with no account and no sign-in.
Keep exploring
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Topics: war-of-attrition, uncertainty, cold-war, history