If you've ever played Risk, you know what I mean!

Okay, so we all got our opinion on why we as a country wage war these days. I understand that evil has always lead the masses, frankly because I believe that the pure hearted has yet had that desire. Anyway, back to the point. If any of you have ever played the game of global domination as in the game of RISK, you understand the intangibles of imperialism and manefest destiny on an indirect level at least.

So I am willing to understand our (as a country) fear of conformist regimes and their will to destroy freewill. I just think we could go about it more strategic. If, and I repeat if, we as a country are pursuing evil regimes so that we can exploit their resources I feel as if we made too bold of a move.

My fellow RISK enthusiest should agree: Considering NAFTA has trilaterally brought Canada, US, and Mexico closer, and our blatant knowlege of the corruptness as a majority in S. AMerica. Why wouldn't we go in and selfishly take from those evil leaders?

Pro's: Access to oil. Beautiful land for developement. Self-sufficient western-hemisphere that would be easier to defend our troops. To me it just seems logical. Build up your cannons here in the western-hemisphere before going in and worrying about the middle-east, NK, China, Iran, etc... Let them fight eachother for now, see if they can resolve on their own, until then, we'll all be vacationing in Brazil, safely.

(Please no one give me this gorilla warfare stuuf about the drug lords, we'd crush them all with napam!)

Con's..? I'll leave that up to you guys.

[edit on 27-9-2005 by John bull 1]

The analogy breaks down because RISK is not a full government simulator- just a military game. There is diplomacy, culture, and economics to consider. Sure we can get oil from S. America, but can we prevent others from getting oil from the Middle East by going to S. America? No.

What's going on in South Asia and the Middle East serves a host of strategic purposes of varying legitimacy (but i'll stay off of the moral aspect and just talk about what we're doing).

Afghanistan is an anchor for our ambitions for the Caspian Sea's fuel reserves (via Iran and Turkmenistan) and the resultant influence over Pakistan and India. It's also conveniently located on vulnerable flanks of two important rivals- China and Russia.

Iraq is a no-brainer. It provides access to Iran, blocks Iran and pretty much everyone else out of Saudi, controls most access to Syria, Jordan, Israel, etc (leaving only Turkey and the Mediterranean as access routes). It also happens to have plenty of oil which we want to control in terms not only of getting it, but deciding who DOESN'T get it.

Iran could be on the agenda for later, ditto Syria, thus completing a solid wall between Russia/China and the Middle East/East Africa.

We're working to partition the Sudan and we're probably going to back an overthrow of the Egyptian government eventually with an eye towards building a network of subservient East African states into an economic community from which we can derive substantial benefits in commerce with both the Middle East and India.

In sort, America's strategy on the RISK Map is essentially to control Africa and threaten rival's influence on India, using the Middle East and South Asia as a buffer zone in addition to being assets in their own right. It's a pincer strategy- build a wall of controlled nations, then proceed to conquer the area behind your wall, then grab a forward outpost to start a new wall. Our enemies are getting strong in S. America, but we have them hemmed in there so we're running around the board weakening them elsewhere and not wasting efforts on South America in the near term.

That's just stupid! The American thirst for expansion has all but ended! And you propose the overrun of South America! That would start WWIII, WWIV, and WWV!

>Azi

Originally posted by Azi
That's just stupid! The American thirst for expansion has all but ended!

Um... or maybe we're just running out of places that aren't under our thumb and aren't protected by nukes. Our thirst for expansion has certainly slacked since the days since " 'Elbow Room!', cried Daniel Boone" (I really think somebody ought to rewrite that poem with "Liebenstrom" in place of elbow room), but by no means are we done meddling with other people's affairs.

I'm not going to say catagorically that expansionism could or should be viewed as invariably negative, although I could certainly see the argument, but I think it pretty much goes without saying that if there was anywhere particularly worth controlling that we weren't doing so great at controlling we'd probably invade them.

One more thing- it would only lead to WWIII as far as the history books are concerned. Actually WWI began when the second government on Earth was founded (or arguably when the second human came into existence) and continues to present. Despite promises of "home by christmas" it quickly became aparent that human existence will be one long struggle until there is only one of us left- or longer if he finds someone of another species to fight with. As I have often said when it comes to conflict- That's life for you. For everything that eats, something gets eaten. For everything the screws, something gets screwed (notwithstanding self-gratification). The foodchain isn't perfect, but the higher up you get, the less it bothers you.

Originally posted by AnAbsoluteCreation
Con's..? I'll leave that up to you guys.

By doing so, you have four extra regions to man with a bonus of only two men per turn. While for the expense of taking just two additional regions (Iceland and Kamchatka or Koryak in later verions) you reduce your opponents per turn gain by 5 and 7 men respectively with little to no impact on yourself.

You can always take South America later, ideally from an African assault. Your northern borders against more dangerous peers are more important to fortify while establishing more strategic footholds than expanding south too fast with little reward.

Unless you have a southern hemisphere strategy of Australia, Africa and South America. Then you take America last.

The game of Risk is more applicable to the current situation than some would think. It's very well designed.