jchan

Von Clausewitz.

End quote.

Because Tuxedo had already established a provisional claim to my yard in the first incident, this seemed more plausible than the other possible interpretation of the stare down, that is that the retreating cat would be conceding the territory on the same side of the fence.

As it so happened, Tuxedo backed down first.

This surprised me, I was expecting Tabby to retreat, because Tuxedo had already proven that he could win in a fight if it came to that.

However, I had not accounted for the home field advantage, or conversely the importance of leaving your enemy a way out.

I now realise that this confrontation had much higher stakes for Tabby than for Tuxedo.

Tabby will fight more desperately in his own yard than either cat did in my yard, because if he can't even defend his own yard, he'll have nowhere else to go.

Therefore, in a fight over Tabby's yard, Tuxedo is likely to take considerable damage even if he does ultimately prevail, and the risk isn't worth the reward.

And it seems that both cats figured this out by meowing at each other for an hour.

The settlement seems to have held, and since the second incident I have not seen either cat venturing onto the wrong side of the fence.

What's funny about this is that the chain-link fence is a more or less arbitrary line, again, it's only about three feet tall, and any cat can easily see through it or climb over it.

but it's clear that the fence is the only plausible shelling point in the contested area, and so it sticks.

Dividing the territory along any other line would be impermissible in cat law.

Heading.

If animals have shelling points, then.

This implies that negotiation is conceptually prior to language.

When Thomas Schelling introduces the topic in The Strategy of Conflict, Chapter 3, pages 67-9, he explains why the study of tacit bargaining, exemplified in seemingly artificial scenarios where the parties are prevented from communicating with each other, is relevant to the real world.

The concept of coordination that has been developed here for tacit bargaining does not seem directly applicable to explicit bargaining.

There is no apparent need for intuitive rapport when speech can be used, yet there is abundant evidence that some such influence is powerfully present even in explicit bargaining.