Inefficient Alliance Formation in Coalitional Blotto Games

TL;DR

This paper examines how alliances form in coalitional Blotto games when resource transfers are inefficient, providing conditions under which mutually beneficial alliances can still emerge despite transfer losses.

Contribution

It introduces a model of alliance formation with inherently inefficient resource transfers and derives necessary and sufficient conditions for beneficial alliances to exist.

Findings

Mutually beneficial transfers are possible despite transfer inefficiencies.

Necessary and sufficient conditions for alliance formation are established.

The robustness of alliances in resource-constrained competitive environments is analyzed.

Abstract

When multiple agents are engaged in a network of conflict, some can advance their competitive positions by forming alliances with each other. However, the costs associated with establishing an alliance may outweigh the potential benefits. This study investigates costly alliance formation in the framework of coalitional Blotto games, in which two players compete separately against a common adversary, and are able to collude by exchanging resources with one another. Previous work has shown that both players in the alliance can mutually benefit if one player unilaterally donates, or transfers, a portion of their budget to the other. In this letter, we consider a variation where the transfer of resources is inherently inefficient, meaning that the recipient of the transfer only receives a fraction of the donation. Our findings reveal that even in the presence of inefficiencies, mutually beneficial transfers are still possible. More formally, our main result provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such transfers, offering insights into the robustness of alliance formation in competitive environments with resource constraints.