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From: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Software for Global Conflict simulation
Message-ID: <1780@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 26 Oct 88 09:24:24 GMT
References: <1703@uop.edu> <324@telesoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
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rlk@telesoft.UUCP (Bob Kitzberger @sation) wrote:
In article <1703@uop.edu>, joshua@uop.edu (Ed Bates) writes:

>> One of the professors in our School of International Studies is interested
>> in any sort of a simulation dealing with global (international) conflict.
>> Does anyone out there have something like that ...?

> You might want to take a look at the "game" Balance of Power, available for
> the Macintosh, and (I think) PC-DOS and Apple ][.  It pits the United States
> against the USSR, each vying for "prestige" points, while avoiding the Big
> One.


I haven't used this, but from the reviews it seems to be little more than an
elaborate codification of Reagan's "evil empire" theory - it doesn't allow for
countries or movements other than the US and the USSR to have their own
agendas (so which side are the Iraqi fascists or the Islamic revivalists or
the Khmer Rouge working for, then? ...).

It may be no bad thing to have software that extrapolates this model, if only
to explore the thought processes of the US right, but don't expect it to have
anything much to do with the real world.  Might be useful to counterbalance it
with the Soviet-written global macroeconomic simulation described in the latest
issue of Byte.  Anyone know of anything that simulates the Weltanschauung of a
Japanese ultranationalist?

-- 
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