THE UNINCLUDED FACTORS
The real world of geopolitics is a complicated place. Dozens or even hundreds of factors such as military power, diplomacy, economics, and religion influence geopolitical behavior. In the preceding chapters, I have discussed the four primary processes that 'Balance of Power' includes: insurgency, coups, Finlandization, and crises. However, 'Balance of Power' is a _game_, not a simulation; I have deliberately chosen to emphasize these four factors at the expense of others. The limited amount of RAM (the computer's memory), the need for clear conflict, and the requirement that the game be easily understood by the player forced me to maintain a brutal editorial discipline with the game. I removed or failed to include a number of processes that rightly deserved a place in a proper simulation of geopolitics.
The process by which I chose some factors for inclusion while rejecting others was not a matter of moving through a checklist and placing check marks in front of some items and Xs in front of others. The factors that went into the game grew naturally from fundamental considerations about my goals in designing the game, and some of those that didn't make it into the game were not rejected, but simply were never considered because they did not flow naturally from these fundamental considerations. Thus, one of the central concepts in the game was the notion of superpower conflict being expressed through conflict in minor countries. This naturally led to the use of insurgency and the options superpowers have for supporting one side or the other in an insurgency. Conversely, arms control never entered into the design because it is not a channel for superpower conflict but rather a (frequently failed) vehicle for superpower cooperation.
In this chapter I will discuss some of the factors, that, for one reason or another, never made it into 'Balance of Power': trade, multipolarity and neutralism, minor-country wars, arms control, human rights, and positive initiatives.
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MULTIPOLARITY AND NEUTRALISM
'Balance of Power' presents a bipolar view of the world. The world is divided into two camps, those of the USA and the USSR. All other nations of the world exist solely in relation to this polarization. A nation's foreign policy is measured by its position on a scale between the poles of the two superpowers.
This is an overly simplistic view of the world. There is another way to view the world - the multipolar view. In the multipolar view, the United States and the Soviet Union are merely the two most powerful nations in the world. The world is seen as a collection of sovereign states, each with its own policy interests and capabilities. Nations are bound to and repelled by each other through a complex web of affinities and animosities.
The multipolar view is a more complex model of the world community. It allows a wider range of interactions between states. There are two important concepts in particular that find easy expression in the multipolar view: neutralism, and the emergence of China as a superpower.
Neutralism is the policy stance of those nations that do not wish to be identified with either the Soviet camp or the American one. Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland are neutralist. A good many Third World countries are also purportedly neutralist, but they prefer the term "nonaligned." In some cases, such as India, this term is appropriate, for India has steered a careful course between the superpowers. In other cases the term is misleading. For example, Cuba has gone to some length to establish its position as the leader of the nonaligned movement, but few nations accept the fiction that Cuba is in practice nonaligned.
The concept of neutralism just doesn't fit into the bipolar view of the world. Staunch supporters of the bipolar view often take the position that every country in the world is either "with or agin' us." A genuinely neutralist country like India is suspected of diplomatic opportunism - of attempting to play off the superpowers against each other.
Another important concept that multipolarity encourages is the developing role of China as the world's third superpower. For the next few decades, China will remain a minor character on the world stage, but this can change quickly if China can master its economic problems. Its huge and energetic population could quickly make it a major force in the world economic order, and its political stance as a Communist state with fundamental disputes with the Soviet Union make it a natural "third force" in the delicate geopolitical balance. Again, the bipolar view of the world sees China solely in terms of how pro-Western or how pro-Soviet it is, and so is blind to the much more likely outcomes.
The emergence of China could end the dangerously unstable situation in which the two superpowers find themselves. In a bipolar world, the only check on one superpower is the other. If you can destroy the other superpower, you have no rivals. The situation is drastically different in a tripolar world. To achieve global dominance, one superpower must destroy both of the other superpowers. Assuming that all three superpowers have roughly the same total power, this is quite out of the question. Moreover, the possibility of two superpowers forming a condominium against the third superpower is remote, for each of the conspiring superpowers would know that, once the third superpower was eliminated, they would be back to the bipolar world of today, with no guarantees of security. The weaker superpower would never go along with so suicidal a plan. A tripolar world would see lots of diplomatic maneuvering, many shifting pairings between superpowers, but it would be fundamentally stable.
MULTIPOLARITY AND 'BALANCE OF POWER'
If multipolarity is so superior to bipolarity as an explanation of the world geopolitical order, why then does 'Balance of Power' use a bipolar view? For three reasons: first, bipolarity is simpler and easier to understand; second, bipolarity is more intrinsically conflict-oriented than multipolarity, and games demand conflict; and third, bipolarity is not such a bad description of the world of the 1980s.
As with trade, early versions of 'Balance of Power' did include multipolarity. But just as trade ran up against the memory limitations of the Macintosh, so did multipolarity. For example, one of the most important concepts in the game is a quantity that I call "diplomatic affinity," which is the degree to which two countries "like" each other. In early versions of 'Balance of Power', diplomatic affinity was a two-dimensional array with 62 columns by 62 rows, although the matrix was collapsed along its diagonal to save space. This still consumed some 3800 bytes of space. It was necessary to have such a large array because multipolarity required that I record the diplomatic affinity of each of the 62 countries of the world for every other country: 62 countries times 62 countries. Later on, I reluctantly chose to eliminate multipolarity, and the diplomatic affinity array was changed dramatically. It became a much shorter two-dimensional array with only two rows and 62 columns - one row for each of the two superpowers, because it was only necessary to record how each country felt about each of the two superpowers.
Players of 'Balance of Power' should realize that bipolarity is not held in high esteem in most countries of the world. Indeed, one source of friction between the United States and its allies is the American fixation on a bipolar view of the world. "Americans," our allies complain, "always see the world in terms of _us_ versus _them_. The real world is more complex than that." For example, we tend to view the populist Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua solely as a manifestation of communist expansion in the Western Hemisphere, while most other countries view Nicaragua in far less sinister terms. They see a populist revolution that overthrew a brutal dictator. Overactive American imaginations, in the eyes of many foreigners, see the Dark Head of Moscow in every local fracas.
So which is right - bipolarity or multipolarity? There is no clear answer. These two concepts are not answers to questions, but rather ways of looking at problems. Each of the two views helps illuminate the complex events of the world scene. 'Balance of Power' only shows the bipolar view. Players should be aware of the multipolar view, for it explains some aspects of international behavior not addressed by the bipolar view.
MINOR COUNTRY WARS
Another factor that was removed from early versions of 'Balance of Power' was the ability of minor countries to declare war on each other. Such wars between minor countries have been a significant contributor to superpower tensions, and have on many occasions been the precipitating factor in major wars. World War I was ignited over a sideshow war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. The major powers had no direct wish for a war but were dragged in by their commitments to their minor-country allies. An even more clear-cut case was the Korean War. Here were two very minor countries, North Korea and South Korea, each with its own protector, China and the United States. Neither the United States nor China had any desire to fight a war in 1950. But when North Korea invaded South Korea, the United States felt compelled to defend its junior partner. Later, when the United States invaded North Korea, China felt compelled to defend _its_ ally. Thus, two unwilling giants were dragged into a confrontation they had no desire to pursue solely because of the actions of their allies.
This is a major flaw in the nation-state system. It arises from the conflict between the notion of sovereignty and mutual defense obligations. Sovereignty is the notion that a nation-state is absolutely free to pursue its own interests, with no externally imposed restrictions on its behavior. Sovereignty is to a nation as freedom is to an individual. However, the sovereignty of states is compromised by their treaty obligations. A case in point is the relationship between China and North Korea. Now, in theory, a mutual defense treaty is written to guarantee assistance to a nation _only_ if it is attacked. In other words, China was under no formal obligation to assist North Korea, because North Korea had initiated the war. In practice, however, things work out differently. Powerful nations provide their client states with mutual defense treaties for sound reasons. For sound strategic reasons, it was in China's best interest for North Korea to survive, regardless of whether North Korea had started the war. Consequently, China had no choice but to intervene.
So here is the dilemma: Where does sovereignty end and client status begin? If North Korea had been a truly sovereign nation, it would have suffered the consequences of its mistake and been conquered. If, on the other hand, it was a proper Chinese client, then it would not have acted without Chinese direction, and the invasion would have been unlikely. The unfortunate fact is that North Korea was sovereign enough to start the war and client enough to get Chinese support when it started to lose. That is a dangerous combination.
Lest the reader think that this was a Communist mistake that we would never repeat, I shall bring up the subject of the American relationship with Israel. Israel is a sovereign state, and has demonstrated its sovereignty time and time again with its wars with Arab states. The United States cannot dictate policy to the Israeli government, yet is compelled by precedent and treaty relationships to stand by it. Once before, in 1973, we went toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union in support of Israel. We have no assurances that our relationship with Israel in another Arab-Israeli war will not bring us into another confrontation with the Soviets, one that we might not survive.
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