This is from the Jeff Childers' Coffee & Covid newsletter, thought I'd share:
Quote:
I ran across a wonderful analogy yesterday that will immediately resonate with Gen-Xers like me who grew up playing the board game of world domination, Risk. It was so popular among Gen-X males that, in college, we'd even play all-night Risk sessions. The game board is a simplified Mercator world map. Players start the game by taking turns choosing countries and placing armies (little plastic horses and cannons). When play begins, they start attacking each other, with the ultimate goal of taking over the entire map and getting to bed at least an hour before morning classes started.
Observe Risk's critical locations of Venezuela and Greenland, from the perspective of North America:
A well-known strategy among players (including your author) who strategically preferred to start their games in North America was that the key to winning lay in just three critical game squares: Alaska, Greenland, and Venezuela. If you controlled just those three "countries," then North America became an impregnable fortress, a base from which the subjugation of the entire world became easy and inevitable, and victory assured.
The explanation for this is access. Any other player trying to penetrate North America could only do so by moving through Venezuela, Greenland, or Alaska. If the North American player assembled large armies (lots of game pieces) in those three chokepoints, then North America was snug as a bug in a rug. The other players would leave North America alone and fight amongst themselves, leaving the American player to simply wait around and clean up, once the dust settled.
Risk looks simple, but it was based on reams of historical and military wisdom, which explains the game's enduring popularity. (These days, of course, it's all about videogames. But back in the day, Risk was an 800-pound board-gaming gorilla.)
In any case, President Trump is playing Risk, and everyone else is playing pick-up sticks.
