War Games

Diplomatic Risk is a game nothing less nothing more. I really did enjoy playing but I felt it was mostly because my team (black) had the goal of 16 alliances (the easiest one) and we won. When I think back to how we played versus what we learned throughout class this year I did not find my choices changing based on my education. I don't really think there is a way to play this game or any board game without a purlely realist lense. There is not much to interpret as the only thing that you have any control over is the military so constructivism is pretty unimportant. You could argue that we as group committed liberal international intervention when we all ganged up on blue. However you could argue that we were not committing an act of humanity and community help but rather we did not want the game to end and lose so we all acted in our own rational self intrest.

I would say that the game is unrealistic in a decent amount of ways some of them are kinda unavoidable. First off when you engage in global diplomacy you cannot win the game. There is no combination of diplomatic manuvering that could result in Trump being name winner. The world has no end at least in the forseeable future, the end of history theory is insane and flimsy on its own so yo cannot win. Even widley successfull states like Rome and the British Empire still collapsed as time went on. Another factor is that you only control the military of your country. For example as black we kept building up our army that we were never going to use, if a state in real life did that then there would be a huge push back from the public. I as president also acted without impunity and if I wanted to I could have attacked anybody without limited effect. Finneally I would say that when a terratory was conquered there was no opposition or resistance from the local population. The United States could invade and conquer belgium with little effort but the local population would make it impossible to incorparate and assimulate. Risk was fun but it was just a game