Book/Simulation2War and TradePaper
AssignmentLecture OutlinesIn the Game of War and Trade, six nation-states compete to achieve the highest level of prosperity. States have many choices (trading, alliances, war, raising endowment levels, and building military strength) to make in an effort to maximize prosperity. Life is complicated and often dangerous and nations typically experience roller coaster rides in terms of power and prosperity. As such it is a simplification of the real world of international politics which matches well with the simplifying assumptions that neorealists like Waltz and Gilpin make about the core nature of international politics. Thus, predictions that Waltz and Gilpin make about the behavior of nation-states should work well in accounting for the actions that you (your nation) and other nations took in the game. Gilpin and Waltz argue that all states strive for wealth, power, and prestige and Gilpin suggests that the international system goes through what could be called cycles of hegemonic leadership. The leading nation-state seeks to organize and control the system and challengers seek to change the system when expected benefits exceed expected costs. The system starts in equilibrium, but eventually, due to differential rates of growth in power of nation-states generated by economic, technological, military and political factors, becomes disequilibriated. Gilpin claims that the resulting disequilibrium is resolved usually by war. Your paper should address four issues. First, what strategy did your nation pursue to "win" and why did it succeed or fail (this should take about at page). Second, discuss how well (or poorly) Waltz’s arguments and predictions worked in the game. Pay particular attention to his arguments about the uniformity of behavior of actors, the role of alliances, the ability to achieve and/or maintain balances of power, the effectiveness of and types of communication and negotiations, and the prevalence of unintended consequences (three pages or so). Third, how well does Gilpin's theory work in accounting for the results you observed in the simulation( three pages or so)? Finally, what features could be added to the simulation to make it more "real world" like and would such features make Gilpin's theory more adequately explain the simulation results (one page)?