Elaine
Hang
Professor
Shirk
International
Relations
9
December 2015
Strategy in Risk
The
results of our modified Risk game show that there is no single playing style
that will lead to success, just as there is no single theory of governance that
will lead a country to the top. Though all the teams focused on fortifying
their armies at first, each teams adopted a mix of liberal and realist strategy
once the attacks began.
The
strategy all the teams began involved fortifying their respective territories. This
defensive move allowed teams to be prepared for future attacks, however it also
encouraged isolationism. Because the teams were hesitant to initiate the first
attacks, they focused on their own country’s needs and interests, which at the
time included keeping out of the affairs of the other teams. However, the
isolationist stances the teams took had to stop. In order to fulfill their respective
goals, they had to take action.
As
a member of the Red Team, I can only speak for them: Red Team took up a
primarily realist strategy. We decided to attack the Blue Team because Blue’s
armies were in the way of our goal, which was to take Ukraine and the
surrounding territories. Red started to attack Blue’s territories in Asia
because it was a faster route. Those attacks made when Blue were unaware of and
vulnerable to Red’s actions. The idea of attacking when the opponent is most
vulnerable resembled realist belief that a state should do what it needs to
survive against a threat, especially at opportune times. By positioning itself
as the initiating aggressor, Red started the major war against Blue.
Red
also made some liberal moves such as allying ourselves with the Yellow Team and
the Black Team. Red did not attack the territories of our allies because we did
not believe attacking them would be a good use of our resources or helpful to
our mission. Even as our allies pulled away from us, we hoped to maintain a
non-verbal agreement that we would not attack them as along as they did not
help Blue and Green.
Red
also tried to attack conservatively; that is, focused our armies on one main
area. Taking over too many territories would have left us very spread out and
vulnerable to attack because the territories would not be well fortified. We
tried to only focus on area that were directly blocking us from Ukraine, while
being somewhat conscious of our surroundings. That focus on one area also
resemble the realist idea of being more powerful as a regional hegemony, rather
than a global hegemony.
Of
course, Red lost while the Black/Pink Team won because they focused on procuring
allies, a rather liberal move. The other teams who were close to winning had a
mix of offensive/defensive and realist/liberal strategy. Green was one round
away from winning. It had maintained a relative supportive alliance and mixed
its moves between being defensive and offensive. That mix made the team unpredictable
to helped them almost win.
As
seen with the Red Team’s loss, being very focused on one goal and only playing
with a realistic strategy can lead to defeat. The element of unpredictability
that comes with mixing playing styles has a higher chance of success in terms
of achieving a goal because it throws opponents off. This modified Risk game
illustrated the consequences of primarily following a single strategy and
mixing different types of strategy.
Elaine, do you think our game's outcome can be applied to the way in which international politics have evolved over centuries? Realist strategies can be seen as more classical, and not necessarily as impactful in today's world economy. Perhaps the Black team's win through cooperation signifies the evolution of anarchic systems into a global framework of unity. While interests may remain divided, perhaps disagreements can be resolved through negotiations and not wars. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteI do agree with your idea about how different teams used different strategies and how some were more liberal than others and vise versa. Adding on to that though, I think whether a team was more liberal or realist focused all depended on their specific objective, not as much on what the teams members wanted to do. I was on the yellow team and our objective was to control twelve territories at once with two troops at least on each. This forced us to be more realist, since it was necessary to attack other territories as much as possible for our own self interest.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tomas. As a member of the Black team, our goal was to get 15 alliances on the board. For us, inciting any sort of Realist strategy or starting any war would have been counter-productive to our goal. To me, it seemed that the IR ideal you followed was focused more on your goal and not so much the emotions of your team members.
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