NationStates Jolt Archive

Over the past few weeks, my political science class has been running the "International Diplomatic Simulation", where we are divided up into teams, each representing a country. We role play that we are that country, and attempt to accomplish our goals. I was the President of the Taiwan group, and I think I led fairly effectively. I even got UN recognition for Taiwan, so no complaints there.

But, what was fascinating was what the prof told us at the end of the simulation. He's been running it for over two decades now, using upper division undergrad students, and previously there had never been an instance where any of the teams had gone to war. In this simulation, there were THREE major wars, and by my (and the Prez of Japans) diplomatic skill, we barely scraped by without a general war. The prof told us that this was a first for almost all of these instances.

It reflects on the times and the culture, when something like this happens, and really does make one think.

It's a bit frightening, frankly. No wars in the past and then 3 in this simulation? What was up with your class?

more likely - what was wrong with past students - browbeaten by prof????

Over the past few weeks, my political science class has been running the "International Diplomatic Simulation", where we are divided up into teams, each representing a country. We role play that we are that country, and attempt to accomplish our goals. I was the President of the Taiwan group, and I think I led fairly effectively. I even got UN recognition for Taiwan, so no complaints there.

But, what was fascinating was what the prof told us at the end of the simulation. He's been running it for over two decades now, using upper division undergrad students, and previously there had never been an instance where any of the teams had gone to war. In this simulation, there were THREE major wars, and by my (and the Prez of Japans) diplomatic skill, we barely scraped by without a general war. The prof told us that this was a first for almost all of these instances.

It reflects on the times and the culture, when something like this happens, and really does make one think.

perhaps people are more used to wars, but without feeling any of the concequences of them? perhaps people are forgetting the world wars? :(


though btw, that sounds a million, trillion times more interesting than anything i ever did in my politics degree :mad:

perhaps people are more used to wars, but without feeling any of the concequences of them? perhaps people are forgetting the world wars? :(

I think people are becoming accustomed to wars, and our collective cultures are slowly getting used to the idea that we can use war as a tool to attempt to solve problems. Which is fundamentally scary to someone like myself. I'm afraid that we might be on the road to 1914 all over again, and we've managed to blind ourselves to it.

though btw, that sounds a million, trillion times more interesting than anything i ever did in my politics degree :mad:

It's incredibly awesome, there are several profs here at OSU that focus on simulation style teaching systems, and it seems to work. It's some of the stuff that you get at the institution that's been rated fourth best poli sci school in the world. [/bragging]

It's a bit frightening, frankly. No wars in the past and then 3 in this simulation? What was up with your class?

We've shown ourselves not to be superhawks when we were doing the lectures, but in the simulations, well, we repeatedly went to war. The worst part was the one started by Russia was for the purpose of blatant nationalism (annexing the Central Asian republics)

We've shown ourselves not to be superhawks when we were doing the lectures, but in the simulations, well, we repeatedly went to war. The worst part was the one started by Russia was for the purpose of blatant nationalism (annexing the Central Asian republics)

I noticed in the OP that you said thanks to the diplomatic skills of you and another player, you avoided a general war. Did you avoid a regional one too?

I noticed in the OP that you said thanks to the diplomatic skills of you and another player, you avoided a general war. Did you avoid a regional one too?

Yeah,

As I said, I was the President of Taiwan, and my underlings were agitating for an independence vote, well, because the PRC got word of that agitation, they were preparing to blockade Taiwan. The Japanese PM and I managed to get the PRC to lift the blockade threats, got my people to fall into line, plus get them some benefits (i.e. UN recognition, and guarantees of autonomy from the PRC).

Yeah,

As I said, I was the President of Taiwan, and my underlings were agitating for an independence vote, well, because the PRC got word of that agitation, they were preparing to blockade Taiwan. The Japanese PM and I managed to get the PRC to lift the blockade threats, got my people to fall into line, plus get them some benefits (i.e. UN recognition, and guarantees of autonomy from the PRC).

That's the way it's supposed to work--everyone gets a little of what they want, no one gets everything they want, and most importantly, few, if any people die. I was worried about your description because it showed that the people studying poli-sci with you aren't looking at war as the last failure of diplomacy, but rather as a diplomatic tool. That's a dangerous mindset, especially since we're talking about people who will ostensibly wind up in government.

I've often wondered if part of the reason that so many in the US are so willing to go to war is because we haven't seen it on our own shores in the last hundred-plus years. In Europe, there are places where there are still bullet holes from WWII in the walls. Kind of difficult to forget the horrors of war when it surrounds you.