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Tuesday, Feb 14, 2023 - 17:02 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Yes You Too

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson



How many stars? Count 'em all!


One thing you got to admit about The Greatest Game, the catering's generally excellent; canapés and hot tea abounds, as the gallery chatters excitedly about recent news, eager to gain whatever insight they can into the workings of the Game. Speculation unavoidably turns to the new trend of supposed unidentified flying objects being eagerly shot down by U.S. jets under NORAD (implying that they didn't ID the target before pulling the trigger?), but the Senate Majority Leader has since supplied a more prosaic answer: they're all balloons.

The scheduled intermission is about over with some Irish rock band wrapping up the entertainment for the break, and the creepily-masked game organizers make to hustle the Teams back to the table, from their respective War Rooms. With us, we have the special guest for this segment, Count von Count from Sesame Street, who begins his banter: three more Red balloons have been reported over America, and with China countering that the U.S. has flown ten over their own airspace (of course again denied by the White House), how many does that make? Thirteen? Thirteen! Ladies and gentlemen, Turn Thirteen of Twilight Struggle: New Moon, for your enjoyment!

Some Action Rounds more or less write themselves, and this is the case for today's Headline from the Reds:


Turn 13, Headline Phase (Team Red)


Nope, still not found what we're looking for
(Original sources: twilightstrategy.com, pinterest.com, cnn.com)


Team Red gains an overall 1 VP lead as they play U2 Incident for its Event. Mechanically, this is admittedly a weak return for the potential Ops VP-wise, but then Team Red coming up with a booby Headline for Turn 3 (or 13) is a fairly-common tactic, if Defectors remains unaccounted for - as is the case for Russia currently. Such is the nature of bluffs and psychological warfare with the U.S. leadership also under considerable pressure to make some big plays, and they could yet reap their reward when Team Blue's Headline - already placed - is revealed next.

The card itself of course references a notable past event about The Greatest Game (well, in America at least; tough luck Philly, I still have an Eagles jersey from when I visited Baltimore for the ARVO conference in 2017); as it turns out, all those balloons and UFOs threatening imminent thermonuclear war were just a promotion for the U2 rock band announcing their upcoming Achtung Baby residency in Vegas, complete with near-identical balloons in their Super Bowl half-time ad spot... *checks script* Waitamin, this sounds off... umm, this seems to be just the placeholder text generated by ChatGPT, apologies. Not very reliable yet*, these bots, you can never be too careful.

*Receives new envelope from usher* Ah yes, where was I? The U2 Incident actually refers to the 1960 shooting down of a top-secret CIA Lockheed U-2 spy plane by the Soviets, obviously also initially denied (as a weather surveillance airplane, no less) by the White House (I'm suspecting that it's their default voicemail greeting). The connection with the purported Red spy balloon had been picked up pretty quickly by the media, insofar as it represented the end of a budding prospective détente between the main Cold War participants. Anyway, for those with a valid flying licence, here's your chance to make a contribution.

Oh, the balloons are definitely not the main course


As it is, the Event has certainly helped nationalistic fervour in China - with B-2 Spirits now also labelled as literal demonic spirits on TikTok - which should signify that 1 VP gained. Notably, China has also boasted of their own balloon-downing capabilities some years back, to which it might be recognized that hitting a slow-moving, unarmed (well, thus far) and huge inflatable object is no great achievement. The costs involved (with the AIM-9x Sidewinder missile used being priced at close to half a million, for example) would appear to favour the balloon-releasing party by a large margin, however, which is why we might see more of them getting airtime shortly.

Balloons are however old hat (dating to the American Civil War and before), really, and both Team Red and Team Blue are assuredly looking higher - at the stars. China's been firing green laser scanning beams over Hawaii, it seems, concurrent with mysterious Russian satellites "accidentally" disintegrating in orbit - they don't make 'em like they used to, I guess, and just ignore that strange flash you think you saw. Amongst all this dick-waving chaos, Elon Musk remains trying to forestall World War III from breaking out over the indignant frothing of bloodlusted Redditors, a thankless task if ever there was one.

And make no mistake - if it wasn't clear that the Blob wants another Cold War before, it has to be obvious now. If you haven't noticed, Cold War II has started to be implied/taken for granted all over the mainstream media, despite similar balloon overflights likely having been common over the past decades. With international relations doyen John Mearsheimer and U.S. military generals now adamant that we are already in a new Cold War, it's apparent that the U.S. has it out for the CCP - and is trying to sell the conflict to the general public. More excitable analysts have even gone as far as to describe the Ukraine ops as the opening battle of World War III, so perhaps a recognition of the inevitable - and more importantly, some commitment to keep it cold - might be welcomed, for all of our sakes.


Any port in a storm, eh?
(Original sources: knowyourmeme.com, hindustantimes.com)


As explained last September, both America and China would much prefer not to be seen by the global community at large as the one to spark off another Cold War (regardless of whether said Cold War is effectively already occuring), but from a strategic perspective, the U.S. probably needs it more badly - and thus their mainstream media overdrive on what was basically an outsized children's toy. The past two Turns have seen Team Red steadily gain ground despite Russia's unwarranted invasion and China's coronavirus self-isolation, and without a concerted effort from Team Blue to block China's rise very soon, Team Red may well rewrite many of "the rules".

Disregarding the "Democracies versus Autocracies" cover story from the U.S. (because, I mean, they could hardly go with "Preserving our Status-quo Hegemony" as their rallying call, duh), the prime consideration for the actual shot-callers (and not the cattle-consumers on a Reddit/Twitter/MSM drip-feed) would be: if I am bound to join one bloc or other, how can I get some assurance that I will be appropriately compensated for my commitment, instead of getting exploited as an expendable vanguard against the other bloc? This fundamental consideration, that all promises - and even written agreements - being ultimately only enforceable by the will and fancy of the strong at the international level, has been amply reflected in games such as Diplomacy - no agreements are enforceable.

Look, I don't want to insinuate that geopolitics was easy in the previous cushy era of American unilateral power, but it wasn't overly complicated, at least if you were under the protective umbrella of Uncle Sam's imperial aegis; "friendly" countries would send their best and their brightest diplomats to the Kennedy school at Harvard to rub shoulders with their peers, all of whom were destined for high places in their domestic foreign affairs apparatus; in that clubby and collegial atmosphere, the learned scholars would solemnly repeat mantras such as Lord Palmerston's statement on there being no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests - secure in the knowledge that they had only one real choice, anyway.

Well, as the new era dawns, it is turning out that there are choices, and that choices have consequences; one wonders at how these very respected Kennedy alumni** will take it - will they embrace this brave new world, or will the pee run under their very expensive Armani pants, to pool inside their Manolo Blahniks? One hand, for all the marbles - game on!


Gang and nation, nation and gang;
not all that different, honestly
[N.B. As also expressed by China's foreign ministry of late]
[N.N.B. One unavoidably sees some influences from Sun Ken Rock in Vincenzo]
(Source: mangakakalot.tv)


On this, it could be noted that Singapore is officially still hedging our bets, with an ambitious intention to "play both sides", but I suppose both Team Red and Team Blue leaders have their own ideas of which side of the line we're actually on. In any case, our Prime Minister's latest assessment is that China's rise is not stoppable, and really it's not like we have got much compunctions about simi "demokesi versace autoclearly", with local firms happily mixing and re-exporting Russian oil like nobody's business, and to Iran at that. Perhaps more concerningly, local confidence in Biden is actually significantly below that for Xi, possible polling bias notwithstanding - so maybe Brandon does need all the help he can get, from the FAKE NEWS.

[*Which of course means our civil servants are piling in.]

[**Remember, they shot him in the end, which is pretty ironic.]

It ain't nice to end on a downer, though, so here's some catchy music for the occasion, while we wait for Team Blue...





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