to be clear: your claim is that the us military is misinformed because key constituents have played too many board games?

does hearing it back like that make it seem absurd to you as well?

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falcor84 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Well, yes (except that Civ isn't a board game). And no, it doesn't make it seem absurd to me.

My argument is that Western strategic thought (with games being a codification thereof, rather than the source of) generally considers countries as mostly atomic actors that can be defeated - the history of European warfare being filled with "gentlemanly" surrenders followed up by peace treaties, with guerrilla warfare being a very rare exception.

On the other side, the reality in the East is that a state's collapse doesn't end the conflict, but just prolongs it. The army doesn't surrender, it goes home with its weapons and reconstitutes as insurgents. I can't actually think of a single proper surrender of an Eastern country ever, except for Japan in 1945.

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dragonwriter 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Well, yes (except that Civ isn't a board game).

It is actually several physical board games, the oldest of which is older than (and unrelated to) the computer game [0], as well as being a series of computer games that are basically digital board games.

[0] Well, except for the computer game based on it and its expansion, which, because of the other computer game, had the long-winded title "Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization".

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pyuser583 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Finland comes to mind.

	▲	falcor84 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		As an example of an Eastern country? Well touché, I suppose you're historically correct, but what I had in my mind for this distinction is not the line in the middle of Europe (between the First World and Second World), but that between Europe and Asia. Sorry if I miscommunicated.