Question #6

As in the Risk world simulation, winning in actual world politics would depend on your country's goals - in the case of the board game, your 'objectives'. Because different countries have different goals, they would have to accomplish special things in order to win. Often these goals would be determined by their political ideology. For example, a communist country such as the USSR during the Cold War, could only have won once the entire world was under communist regime. Much of what it would have taken for them to win did not directly depend on their nation, but on the politics of the global community. During this conflict, the US would have faced similar challenges as they tried to win because their goals also involved the world as a whole. As opposed to the USSR, however, the US' goals involved the spread of free-market capitalism and democracy. Countries whose goals only involve their nation would have an easier time winning. Such goals could include wealth, power, social justice or equal right.
As opposed to the clear, written objectives of each nation in the board game simulation, countries' objectives are always changing or not clearly defined, making it hard to tell whether or not a country has won. It is the easiest in dictatorships, where one person holds all the power and thus chooses the goals on his own. In comparison, democracies' goals are much less clear. Since the people choose the government, their goals should also be the goals of the state. Yet people hold many different, often completely contrasting opinions, making it impossible for the government to represent them all. Democratic governments also face many problems that more autocratic forms of rule do not. They must make their people happy in order to be reelected, which often focuses their goals on fixing national instead of international problems. Because each government faces separate problems and has separate goals, winning means something else to each nation.