Reflection Week 8

Past week's reflection has been interesting in that the board game was transformed so drastically that you could actually see how the situation sometimes can only be most effectively addressed by certain behavior which can be then traced back to a certain school of thought. Since the game is not finished, it would be inappropriate to comment on specific objectives.

However, one aspect that is interesting is that because there is no severe consequence for going to a war (except for losing one troop every turn per war) the diplomatic status changes quite often and war is easy to wager if there is enough resource. This is somewhat true in the world today because if a state has resources it can go to war at any time, yet it faces much international consequences in today's integrated international community. Without much justification, nations are certain to be criticized if they go to war without an overpowering reason. This was an aspect that seemed to be missing in the game and would have made the game more similar to the real world.

Because the wars went somewhat unchecked, it seemed that most teams were relying on a realist notion of self-help. However, alliances were formed not to balance the power against the hegemon, but for strategical reasons and troops were maneuvered around to defend better or to get into a better position to strike than for an outright assault. However, there were certain countries that relied heavily on alliances and stayed out of conflicts. Interestingly, when alliances were suggested, not many, if not all, were reciprocally accepted, which kind of is similar to the liberal notion.

All in all, as PTJ mentioned, you can see several schools of thought being put in play in to the risk, despite the fact that none of the teams have really decided beforehand which school of thought they should pursue.