This may be an unnecessary detour, but this time I'll be springing to the effects of previous moves rather than sticking strictly to the U.S. of A. in my moves. Notwithstanding your comments about that late, unlamented scumbucket Romanian dictator, I don't see that real events subsequent to game-start ought to be added in. Such events proceed in some part from other post game- start developments which do not track developments in the game world. For game purposes I regard Romania as the same familiar hell-hole of despotism we've always known. So much for flattering our new pals in the East. Here is my current Solidarity input: ACTION: (Yes-and) The West - The NATO Alliance RESULT: The NATO nations become apprehensive about the stakes in the Great Game, especially France, Britain, and West Gemany. France and Britain each review and update contingency plans for independent use of their nuclear arsenals. In the NATO frontline nations, the titanic forces stirring in the East are seen as an unpredictable and therefore dangerous unknown in the East-West political and military equation (which has at least provided peace, it an armed one, until now). REASONS: 1. The West - The Ruleof Law. [NATO nations are anxious about anarchy in East. If reform is to come, they prefer to see it brought about in orderly fashion by sitting governments.] 2. Emotions - Fear. Ghosts of 1789 1848, 1870, 1914, and 1956 are all invoked relentlessly by NATO nation politicians, for real concerns as well as political advantage. The populace looks East desperately for some sign of Soviet intentions.) 3. Goals - The West: a. Spread Democracy; b. Maintain Stability. (Rightly or wrongly, the West is not committed to the spread of democracy as a revolutionary ideology, but rather only by moral persuasion and economic power. A militarily stable environment is necessary for this strategy to work, playing into the second goal. Widespread East Bloc instability Is fraught with possibilities which run directly against these goals and their strategy.] Meanwhile, back at the Ratcave ... ACTION: (Yes and) The Warsaw Fact RESULT: The Pact leadership has overestimated the military component of Western response to Eastern disorders. KGB and GRU intelligence operations find a seemingly frantic level of military operational planning underway. They fail to identify that much of the heightened activity is due to "going it alone" national planning going on along with NATO contingency planning. U.S. "Air-Land Battle" doctrine, stressing deep offensive operations, raises grave concern when a NATO scenario for REFORGER maneuvers is compromised. It bears a striking resemblance to a first-strike offensive to liberate Berlin and cut off the entire Group of Soviet Forces/Germany. REASONS: 1. The KGB. [Like every other organism, it seeks to survive and portrays the external threats it investigates in the worst light, in part to justify its continued existence.] 2. The West - Decision Making Is Slow and Tedious. (The most visible component of Western response to the crisis so far has been the military one. It is the only part or Western governmental machinery which responds in advance to much or anything, and all things considered military preparation is not inappropriate. Still, due to Western perplexity over events. military preparation is disproportionately visible.] 3. Goals - Conservatives: Preserve Stalinism. [Pact leaders, your basic conservative kind of guys, see the internal disorder and external military preparation as a grave threat to the Stalinist ideal of a military union against the capitalist states. The external threats indeed represent a certain opportunity to quell the internal disorders to these dinosaurs.] Chris Blair sends Action: Ukrainian Communist Reformers demonstrate for a new federalism in the USSR. Result: Nationalist and Reformists unite In a dream for autonomous federal republics within the USSR. Reasons: 1. There is ethnic unrest 2. They do want reform 3. Central control is a common enemy of both. Action: Yes And Result: Gorbachev endorses the Ukranian plan for autonomous federal republics within the USSR. Reasons: 1. Gorby is a reformer 2. Nationalism must be curbed somehow 3. The KGB can always be used to reassert dominance if things get out of hand. Back to Experimental Games Group # 10 Table of Contents Back to Experimental Games Group List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1990 by Chris Engle This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com