At the end of a game that has been designed, nurtured, and umpired, it is useful to sit back and reflect on the lessons we have learned from it. There are two dimensions to this. What lessons of game design stand out? And what lessons about the subject matter stand out? In this case, the former question is just as useful as the latter. Normally, we ask what a game has taught us from the perspective of the subject matter. However, in this case, because we were trying to do things that were new to us, it is also worth spending time on the structure of the game design.
The most significant observation made to us was that China rather had an easy time of it within the game. The United States was unable to leverage an effective degree of opposition to Chinese ambitions in the region. Part of this may be down to gameplay, but far more of it would be down to the case that a disengaged America has far fewer assets to play with in the region. The United States could have orchestrated Saudi resistance to Iran, especially in Syria, as a means to counteracting Russian influence, but there was very little incentive for Saudi Arabia to adopt that cause.
The Chinese objectives were fairly straightforward - build a railroad. To achieve this, as a matter of game design, China needed to orchestrate Iran, Russia, and Turkey. This happened in the game because the priorities of the players were reasonably aligned. However, what options to China were available if, say, Turkey decided to look west rather than east? A renewed Turkish commitment to NATO would certainly have altered the calculations of the BRI. Perhaps this could have been encouraged by exacerbating Turkish suspicions over Russian intentions in the region? That's an interesting possibility that could be explored in future runs of the game.
Within the game, Iran wasn't a particularly aggressive regional player. This was more gameplay than game structure because the Iranian player had the opportunity to be more aggressive in their approach, but decided not to be. Boosting the Iranian economy and strengthening Iranian civil society meant that Iran was fairly secure internally. By courting China and Russia, Iran achieved a degree of external security as well. As interesting point of uncertainty concerns what could have happened had Iran been more aggressive over, say, the partition of Iraq? By 2050, Iran controlled much of eastern Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. It is interesting to speculate on how relations with Turkey would have resulted had Iran been more expansionary within the region. Would Turkey have allowed this?
What we did see is the rise of Iran from being a local actor to being one with a far larger regional footprint. As the custodian of the Shia inheritance, Iran counter-balanced the Sunni guarantor - Saudi Arabia - quite well. We didn't write too much of this conflict into the game and it didn't reveal itself as part of the gameplay either. In this sense, this aspect of the game remained quite underdeveloped. In future run throughs, perhaps this aspect could be brought into stronger focus?
The game was designed to explore some aspects of unitary government - as opposed to federal government - within the region. Unsurprisingly, we found that unitary government in conjunction with strong backers gave a more stable result than a federal structure without any strong focussed backing. Syria, with the backing of Iran and Russia, fared a lot better than Iraq, which received the lukewarm support of a largely disengaged United States. The disengagement of America created a power vacuum into which China expanded her influence, Iran extended her control of the region, and the Kurds had a go at forming an independent Kurdistan. In this sense, the game achieved the result that had been baked into the design of the game. However, are we convinced by the outcome?
That raises the broader question of how satisfied we might be with the results of the game? We were quite pleased to see that a US withdrawal from the region created a power vacuum into which Chinese influence flowed. The main beneficiary of this was Iran. The way the BRI is structured, China plans to exert influence over a territory rather than occupying it, which means that China is always in need of local partners. The ascendancy of Iran fits this role very well. We found this aspect of the game to be quite convincing.
Hanging around that were the responses of Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. The protection of China helped the relationship between Russia and Iran. Chinese and Russian interests were reasonably well aligned as time wore on. We found this convincing. The game didn't expose the fragility of western sanctions in the face of Chinese support, which is something we would have liked to see develop. It would have provided an alternative financial and commercial structure into which Syria and Kurdistan could well have played. There is also sufficient scope to draw Turkey into such a framework.
To do so would have given Saudi Arabia an awkward choice. On the one hand, Saudi policy could remain wedded to the present structures - deeply engaged with the US and underwriting the Arabic world. On the other hand, with the US disengaging in the region, retreating into a core heartland south of the Persian Gulf and allowing Iran, more or less, a free hand north of it. Whilst not entirely convinced by this outcome, it does, at least, seem plausible.
The game generated an interesting vision of the region in 2050. The currents are incredibly complex and there are many moving parts, so we are uncertain that we generated a stable baseline for exploring the future of this region. It feels as if the same game played again would generate entirely different results. This is probably a good thing because it does speak to the complexity and instability of the region. However, of one thing we are certain, if the BRI is to extend south of the Caspian Sea, China will have to impose some sort of order to the region. That alone makes the game both interesting and important.
Stephen Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2022
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