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but in the long run, it is a weighing machine." - Warren Buffett, paraphrasing Ben Graham ...and we're back, folks! Turn 13, Action Round 6 (Team Red) The audience has been getting restive in the... five months since the last Action Round, to which we can only apologize profusely for the stand-up. There's a lot of catching up to do, and we should really be midway through Turn Fourteen now at least, but one thing at a time - Reds to play their final card of the Turn! ![]() Or: the less-impressive version of OPEC (Original source: twilightstrategy.com) Ah, that's the first Scoring Card to be played this Game, and while we have briefly explained them in the Twilight Struggle tutorial last June, it should be time for a more detailed dissection. As stated then, such cards may not be held to the next Turn (reinforced by the ominous red warning bar at the bottom of the card), which is probably at least part of why Team Red is throwing it out right now. The card states the amount of Victory Points (VP) accruing to each player/Team, for achieving various statuses in the indicated Region (the Middle East, in this case). Cribbing from the relevant Section 10 of the rulebook:
A couple of quick reminders/clarifications on these statuses: a Team scores for the best status/category that they qualify for, even if they meet the criteria for multiple categories. Interestingly, this does not appear to be directly stated in the rulebook, but is firmly established by custom. Again, it is entirely possible to Control a region without Domination, in the case where a Team indeed Controls all Battleground States (and more countries overall than the other Team), but zero non-Battlegrounds. In this case, they still get maximum VPs. And, to resolve the scoring, let us refer to the board, which reflects the geopolitical state of the real world, about end-April 2023 (where the Game had left off): ![]() The "new face" of the Middle East? [Click to enlarge] Checking for Presence first, Team Red controls Iran, and Team Blue controls Lebanon & Jordan, meaning that both Teams have established a presence in the Middle East. Well done, lads! Now checking for Domination, Team Blue controls two countries, more than Team Red, but no Battleground States. Team Red controls one country, which happens to be a Battleground State, but that's not sufficient either. Therefore, neither Team dominates the Middle East, which one supposes is a fair reflection of the on-the-ground situation there. The same goes for Control, with nobody coming anywhere close to asserting Control over all of Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya and Egypt - surely a tall order in this embryonic era of multipolarity! With the three VP apiece from presence cancelling out each other, let's tally the additional points: no VP are available for the "Controlling a country adjacent to the enemy superpower" condition for the Middle East, but Team Red gains one VP for their Control of Iran as a Battleground State. As such, Team Red gains one net VP from this card, for a 2 VP overall lead! Here, we enter some pertinent commentary on the fundamental nature of the developing Cold War II. To start off, objections against identifying the ongoing "great power conflict" (because no-one doubts that part any longer) will be addressed. One of them is that the specifics of this conflict have changed from the original Cold War - in particular, Team leaders the U.S.A. and China are far more intimately entwined in trade relations than the former had ever been with the U.S.S.R., Team Red is not actively attempting to spread an ideology (Communism previously), etc. About this, refer the detailed analysis from last March on the similarities outweighing the differences. In sum, Cold War II echoes the first edition in about the same way that World War II resembled (while not totally taking after) World War I. Sure this may be a Mandarin instead of a Mallard, but if it walks and quacks like a duck, maybe... maybe it's a duck. Entering into one of the more oft-repeated dissentations, there no longer being two well-defined blocs - and instead multiple poles/power centres - has been argued to disqualify this from being called a Cold War. However, it can hardly be denied that main players America and China are raising groupings (i.e. the G7/NATO vs. BRICS+/SCO) and initiatives around themselves, and while there might well be other poles (most prominently Europe, but also SEA/Africa/LatAm etc.), it is hardly a stretch of the imagination to slot them under the former Unaligned/Third World/Global South banner, if they don't get formally inducted into either the Red or Blue camp. Perhaps Team Red in particular isn't as tightly-integrated as the former Soviet Union was (yet), but such things can change... and quite quickly. Another point of contention against Cold War status, is that this can't be one because either China isn't worthy of being recognized as being a superpower (and thus qualify as a true competitor to reigning hegemon the U.S.A.), or that there simply aren't any sufficiently-multidimensional superpowers any longer. Bremmer for instance claims that there are in effect multiple, separate but overlapping world orders, with the U.S.A. maintaining a unipolar security order, but China and the rest opening up a multipolar economic order, with technology firms administering a corporate digital order. Given war in Europe, Coups in Africa and China banning the iPhone, however, maybe the old Cold War paradigm might fit better after all. One more criticism can be discussed, which is that this is not actually the Second Cold War, but merely a continuation of the first after a short (thirty-year) interregnum, which might well be future orthodoxy if the renewed competition lasts as long as the original run had (going on fifty years), or more. A related view is this being the Third Cold War, if one considers the revival of tensions about 1980 as the second edition, but this is probably a minority opinion, and so much pedantry. Then, if a Cold War by any other name is acknowledged, the easy acceptance of a Cold War framing by Team Blue (especially U.S.) thinkers and media might be attributed to them having, well, won the last one. Unavoidably, the accompanying analyses tend towards an undercurrent of "hey, we whooped the Reds' ass the last time, we can do it again". As more-cautious scholars have warned, however, there is really no guarantee that this pleasant narrative - of Blue outlasting and defeating Red - will necessarily repeat itself. Which brings us to - what really caused this new Cold War, anyway? The Unmoved Mover Some might point to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, their partnership with China, America's/China's/Russia's/NATO's many various provocations (depending on what you're reading), or even a ill-timed coronavirus pandemic as sparking off the current sorry state of international affairs. Summarized into a single chart, however, the proximate cause would be this: ![]() The projections don't lie... or do they? (Source: dgap.org) This is the sine qua non of all our troubles; for those not following the financial pages, China's GDP (in purchasing power parity [PPP] terms) had already surpassed that of America back in 2014 (which, come to think of it, might have encouraged their stock woes about the next year). As of 2022, World Bank data has them at $30.33 trillion, as compared to America's $25.46 trillion, or already close to a 20% advantage. This gap is moreover predicted to widen to about $130T to $60T by 2050, which means that China would have more than double the U.S.A.'s economic heft, and within the next thirty years. The implications of that single statistic are pretty automatic. If that scenario comes to pass, not only would it be essentially impossible for America to hold on to their position as the leading global superpower, it would be more than likely that they would be entirely replaced in that role by China. Recall, the current U.S.A. hegemony came about not because of any lingering goodwill for saving the world from the Nazis in WW2, but because everyone else that mattered had their industry in ruins, and/or were hopelessly indebted to them no thanks to the war. Specifically, the U.S.A had a GDP of $1.46 trillion back in 1950, with the Soviet Union a distant second at $0.51 trillion. Here, we might briefly discuss the overarching theme of Cold War I. From how the U.S.A. has been pumping up the revival, one could be forgiven for stating that it was "democracy versus autocracy/dictatorship", and in fairness there was some slight element of that. However, more-learned discourse (such as Ford's very well-researched exposition) tends to be very clear on the true answer: it was capitalism versus communism (or socialism), and capitalism won. All else is commentary. ![]() Two thousand historical precedents (Source: visualcapitalist.com) Continuing on this line of reasoning, one might consider the relationship between production (i.e. GDP) and regional (locally global) dominance, over two millenia. The general trend seems reliable enough to be termed an "iron law", over the longer term (i.e. decades into centuries); who outproduces, wins. This basic rule is essentially obeyed, as each great power of its time had their day in the sun. There was China up there and thereabouts through antiquity up until the 18th century, as they sat out the petty games played in Europe (note that considering India/Bharat as a unified entity is somewhat iffy), which had France, the Italian states, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands contending at various stages, in many mutable forms. The United Kingdom only really took off with the Industrial Revolution with Germany and Russia their closest rivals, until the U.S.A. swooped in to clean up their scrap(s). Which is where we return to the opening quote from Buffett, which was aimed at the (financial) markets, but applies just as well to geopolitics. In the short run, votes (i.e. democracy, diplomacy, "soft power") predominate - a country can protect its status in the international order to a large extent by calling upon past reputation and favours, judicious use of (oft FAKE NEWS) propaganda, language affinities, residual goodwill, etc. However, as time goes on, all these fall to sheer productive power. To borrow another concept, this time from martial arts (wuxia) literature, 现在是比拼内力, 没有取巧的余地. Over time, past allies eventually get bought over to the other side with material benefits overriding increasingly-empty promises. Foreign bases and outposts get abandoned due to budgetary constraints, and occupied by the newly-cashed-up adversary. Efforts to shore up weakening spots only expose new vulnerabilities elsewhere, because total capabilities are finite. This then is the fundamental dilemma that America (and Team Blue) find themselves with, in Cold War II. To wit, the U.S. didn't win because of their "liberal democracy" - democracy came into fashion (and not even all that much) because the U.S. won, and they won due to their economics/industry (note: China adopted capitalism, are are pretty good at it; I've been there, I know). And, let's face it, thirty years of supremacy is a very, very short period to be extrapolating an eternal ideological victory from! Recent Team Blue headlines on how "China's economy might never overtake America's", and China's persistent public calls against a new Cold War, can then be understood based on the above framework - which is undoubtedly followed by most (competent) world leaders. China is for the status quo, simply because they see themselves as winning (crushingly) eventually, as long as there are no large upheavals such as a concerted and sustained containment strategy against them... and they may well be right; on the other hand, America doesn't have much time left to slow their rise, and has to gather a mob to take the Red leader down, before their own reserves - and credibility - are exhausted. Will they succeed, or will it be back to kowtow-ing to the Emperor of All Under Heaven? Stay with us then, as they play their moves out in Twilight Struggle: New Moon! Next: The Fear Of All Sums
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