Reflection: The Risk paid off, but we could have beaten you "Black and Blue"

Okay, let's never play this game again.  While it didn't destroy any friendships or anything, I feel I had strategized a little too much beyond healthy levels about this game.  Also, I'm tired of finding clever ways to put "Risk" in my blog post titles, so thank goodness this is over.  By the way, sorry to the other class for calling you guys overcommitted to your game; I know now your pain.

It was interesting to see the complete and utter revitalization of Team Blue as the game went on.  We had basically left them for dead, as they had given up their town center, and the board was full of wars.  As Red was eliminated, however, the strategy of Blue had begun to change.  It was very interesting to see the Blue team move from a liberalist/constructivist mindset of getting countries to sign on to potentially costly international agreements at the diplomatic table to a realist/liberalist perspective once their interests were up against the wall.  This could potentially predict problems in the real world -- if a country is backed into a corner, would you really expect it to continue the damaging practices that got them into their mess in the first place (this is not a knock against liberalism)?  A country with its interests threatened can be expected to turn to a more realist mindset, and this could prove valuable in future Risk games, both imaginary and real.

However, Green seemed to show the consequences of quickly pivoting from a liberal mindset to a realist one.  Green attempted to defend itself against a quickly converging enemy, and being too reactionary to such preliminary steps seemed to be their downfall, as we took them out rather quickly.

However, three's a crowd.  The one problem that global powers have always had with liberalism is the inherent power-sharing mechanism that accompanies it.  The Imperial March/Ride of the Valkyries sounds pretty lame when you have to share the glory with two others.  We had to share our victory with Blue and Yellow, however it could have theoretically been solved with just Blue and Black as victors.  Yellow had moved all but one of their troops out of Ukraine, and the order on the board would have allowed us to take Ukraine (as we still had our strategic pseudo-war with Yellow), while still being able to wipe the war off the board.  Blue could have used its censure power to ensure that Yellow would not have any say in sanctioning our takeover of Ukraine, and voila: two winners, not three.  Perhaps this shows that there can no longer be, in this new interdependent world order, a one-winner scenario in such a large scale conflict.  As the image above shows, the Soviet Union was instrumental in taking Germany for the Allies in World War II, proving that one group needs help from those who they may one day consider enemies in defeating a common enemy today.  It certainly gives an ominous outlook for the power-brokerage that will have to result in future worldwide conflicts, especially as economics have become much more important in global society.