Blog #9: Epic Fail.

Contrary to the game of RISK, which involves an obvious, aerial view of the game-board (the world), paying for a war by simply giving up one of your troops, and rolling dice to determine who gets a certain territory, in the real world it’s actually impossible to win because every nation has its own goals, and the playing field is far from even.

However, if winning were an actual possibility it would mean that a nation exerted, and maintained social and political influence on all other nations through international institutions and effective communication. This influence would not necessarily be caused by military to economic dominance, but these could play a key factor in becoming the “winner.” Having a strong influence through global institutions would mean maintaining control of organization such as the United Nations and International Monetary Fund. Although having control of all these institutions, and having overwhelming influence sounds slightly like implementing a dictator onto the rest of the world, this is untrue because all nations would continue to function independently, with their own governments and domestic institutions. Of course, power and a prosperous economic position are ideal in case others begin to disregard this nation’s influence, this would hopefully be avoidable through effective and frequent communication with those being influenced, especially “second place winners.”

While dominating international organizations, maintaining a forceful army, and a flawless economic system are unlikely, they are still tangible goals. However, convincing human beings that one specific school of thought absolute, right way is much more inconceivable: people always disagree. Sure, it might be achievable for a moment, but the true power (and winning) lies in maintenance of these tangible goals, plus indisputable influence. Unlike RISK, there is no “final round.” In fact, the winner of our game was able to make certain moves, and make certain sacrifices because they knew that after this round, the game was over and it would no longer matter what happened to most of their armies and territories. This situation is not applicable to real life, therefore true winning does in fact mean maintaining one’s power for an infinite amount of time.

In our global society, perhaps it is a good thing that it is so impossible to actually win. Progress comes from change in ideas and without this change, and conflict the world would be stagnant, granted there would probably be less fighting and it would be a serious plus to be a part of the winning team, but we would also lose the exchange of ideas, a key factor in progress on an international level.