Red Queen's Race ~ by Ransom

 

"it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place" - The Red Queen, Through the Looking Glass

The Red Queen's Race

A Red Queen's Race describes a competitive situation where each participant expends resources in an attempt to gain an advantage but can't because everyone else also expended resources to the same end.  No-one can get ahead in a Red Queen's Race but the resources must be expended just to avoid falling behind.  It is a stalemate that demands increasing commitment to avoid losing.

The First World War saw several instances of this kind of behavior as each Power threw more and more infantry into the meat grinder.  Any technological innovation on one side was quickly neutered by an innovation on the other.  The war was a process of attrition won by the Allies primarily because the Central Powers were the first to run out of resources to burn.

The term "Red Queen's Race" derives from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, where the Red Queen takes Alice on a race that results in no movement and tells her "it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

In most forms of economic competition there is room for multiple competitors; so long as each participant makes "enough" there is little incentive to succumb a Red Queen's Race.  Falling behind is not mortal.  In economic situations or inter-state contests where falling behind means some kind of extinction the only limit to what one is willing to spend is what one is able to spend.

As the nature of society changes from ordered liberty to conflict on all points the need to learn how conflict works will continue to grow.

Avoiding and Escaping the Red Queen's Race

While there is a lot written on the internet about the Red Queen's Race I found little about avoiding or escaping it.  What follows are my own thoughts.

Avoiding the Red Queen's Race:

Because the Red Queen's Race is an all-consuming competition, avert competition by being unassailable before your rivals decide whether to compete

Become of value to potential rivals, turning them into clients before engagement occurs

Become a non-competitor by dominating a space your rivals do not need or can not attain but must respect

Ensure your adversary believes that consolidating a victory would be more trouble than it is worth

Escaping the Red Queen's Race:

Actors engage in the all-consuming competition of the Red Queen's Race because they view themselves as having no other choice, so develop other choices such that non-participation does not constitute extinction

Change the nature of the competition so that your adversary is fully invested in assets that no longer have value while you are invested in assets that do have value

Winning the Red Queen's Race:

Increase your rate, capacity, and depth of resource expenditure to ensure you are the last entity standing

Eliminate the adversary's ability to effectively marshal assets

Bring in new allies while obstructing your opponents from doing the same

Divorce the interests of your adversary's people from the interests of your adversary as an entity; your adversary will lose internal support