ABSTRACT
The news that the Nobel Prize in economy was awarded to Nash, Harsnayi and Selten for their works within the domain of game theory reached me while I was preparing this Introduction. I am quite convinced that the decision of The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences is not only crowning their excellence in the field but also stressing the importance of the problems they have studied. Albeit game theoreticians are quite often accused of concentrating on purely theoretical and too refined issues of no practical importance, these reproaches are in most cases unjustified. In fact, theory of games and her related disciplines are striving to construct simplified formal models of human behavior in conflict situation. These models are than extremely helpful both in understanding the structure of conflict (be it social, military or economic) and in choosing the best strategy. And what is actually more practical then a good description of a conflict.
