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From: lmaher@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: The Game of Nations
Message-ID: <5000111@uokvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Oct-84 15:04:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uokvax.5000111
Posted: Wed Oct 24 15:04:00 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Oct-84 07:49:07 EST
Lines: 42
Nf-ID: #N:uokvax:5000111:000:1616
Nf-From: uokvax!lmaher    Oct 24 09:04:00 1984

The following are the rules to The  Game  of  Nations,  excerpted
from  the  book  of the same name by Miles Copeland, published by
Simon & Schuster, 1969.

        1. Each player wants not so much to win as to avoid loss.

        2. All players have no objective except to keep The  Game
                going.

        3. The alternative to The Game of Nations is war.


By way of further explanation:

     "The Game of Nations differs from the other games  -  poker,
war,  commerce  -  in  several  important  respects.  First, each
player has his own aims, different  from  those  of  the  others,
which  constitute  "winning";  second,  every player is forced by
his own domestic circumstances to make moves in  the  Game  which
have  nothing  to do with winning and which, indeed, might impair
chances of winning; third, in the Game of Nations  there  are  no
winners,  only  losers.   The  objective of each player is not so
much to win as to avoid loss.

     "The common objective of players in the Game of  Nations  is
merely  to  keep  the Game going.  The alternative to the Game is
war."

        --From  a  lecture  by  Zakaria  Mohieddin,  then   Vice-
President  of  the  United  Arab  Republic,  to  the Egyptian War
College, May 1962.


This book offers a fascinating look at the moves and countermoves
in the Middle East 1947-1967, by a man who was there and knew the
players very well. There  is  also  an Appendix,  on  the  "Power
Problems of a Revolutionary  Government," and a suggested reading
list.  The latter is 15 years old, of course.

Carl
{allegra,ihnp4}!convex!ctvax!uokvax!lmaher