A Strategic Negotiations Model with Applications to an Internatianal Crisis

The area of automated negotiation has been of particular interest in AI due to the important role negotiations play in facilitating understanding and the achievement of cooperation among entities with differing interests, whether they be individuals, organizations, governments,. or automated agents. A strategic model for negotiation of alternative offers, is presented with specific application to international crises. In the model, both players can opt out, and while one loses over time, the other gains (up to a point). Specific issues are: conflicting objectives and utility functions of parties and the impact of time on bargaining behavior in crisis. The general model has relevance to the hostage crisis from which it was built, and subsequent applicability in building an automated negotiation agent for experimental and training purposes.