So what game are the Greeks playing? Here are four possible hypotheses:
* * *
Game 2: they are bluffing and they are only now realising that they have miscalculated. Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party are newcomers to the high politics of the EU. They won election in January believing that they could win the argument against “austerity” and find like-minded friends across Europe. The past few months have been a painful education in the realities of European politics. Mr Varoufakis’s theories have not worked out in practice, leading him to lament the absence of “a skilled game theorist on their side”. But Syriza’s belated realisation that it must largely accept the terms of its creditors — or quit the euro — has come perilously late.
