Statecraft Simulation

Through the novel, 1984, George Orwell argues that a society can unite through nationalism and the opposition of a common enemy. The oligarchy of Oceania is represented by three ironic slogans in which one is “War is Peace”. The idea of believing that war is being waged regularly is one of the ways to keep the peace among the people. When a war is going on, a community tends to be prioritized. The prioritization of the community sometimes leads the people to sacrifice something of their own for the improvement of society. A government that has its people’s devotion allows for the community to be maintained easily, thus keeping the peace.

In the simulation today, we split up into our respective chambers of Congress, and within the House we split up into the House Internal Matters Committee, the Government Operations Committee, and the Budget Committee. In the Internal Matters Committee and the Government Operations Committee we reviewed our mail and took notes on the mail we received. We then merged and briefly discussed our mail and our stances on the legislation written about in the mail. We then joined forces with the Budget Committee to discuss the budget. There were various debates about raising funds for different agencies and departments favored by each political party. The Senate passed the compromised version of Bill 111 and the President signed this bill into law.

A strong central government sets a foundation for how a civilization is supposed to run. Rules, values, and order are all contributors to a community’s governmental structure to make it run smoothly. These factors allow the people and government officials to sustain and avoid falling apart. The main reason that civilizations collapse is because of the failure to maintain a government, without corruption, which usually leads to poor decision-making based on the leaders self interests. One civilization that had first hand knowledge of what a weak central government looked like was Ancient Macadonia.

Although the term itself means the absence of rules and authority, there are rules found in the underbelly of the terms. Even in Anarchy order will naturally form, because it is necessary for human existence. In Anarchy the rules are that people must care and regulate themselves due to the absence of a ruler, but even then people do not want absolute freedom. Sure they will enjoy it for a short period, but

How long would it take for chaos to set in and destroy not only the country’s sense of order, but the economy, resources, and general image of the country. Order implies a necessary loss of freedom if people are to survive. Democratic countries protect and care for individual freedom and generally believe that laws should not be repressive. A little order can be sacrificed if liberty happens to need one. So one kind of balance is between order and liberty.

One of the important themes that I witnessed this semester while doing the Statecraft simulation was Economics and Trades. Here are some examples of how economics and trades happened in Statecraft. At the beginning of the game we all have respected the rules of the game and asked for recourses nicely. Some wealthy countries with good resources had trades and deals with countries that need resources. Therefore, some countries like the Empire of Naponiello used the resources that they have within their country and the resources that they get from the trades and deals to built their military.

I am Monica Thompson, Secretary of State for the Country Athenia. Upon giving my peers a review for this semester’s Statecraft assignment I felt abandoned and abused. There were 4 members that started out at the beginning of the semester and we were all very active and on the right track. Initially we had elected Melvin to be the President but something went wrong with the system or maybe a user error and the President position was given to Justin. I gave everyone a not so great rating because of the lack of communication and integrity on everyone’s behalf. No one answered phone calls or text messages on decisions that needed to be made and I was unable to acquire the password to be able to make changes on my own.

Human nature as defined by the Collins dictionary, is ‘the qualities common to humanity’. It shows how humans are predisposed to act. Different ideologies have opposing views on human nature; the realist approach would view humans in a very pessimistic way, in that they are uncooperative and choose ‘self-interest over moral principle’ (Nardin, Mapel, 1993, p62). Essentially realism shows that ‘the principle actors in the international arena are states, which act in their own national interests, and struggle for power’ (Stanford, 2010). In regards to the international system and how nation states collaborate, when there is no authority, and nations do what benefits them the most, international anarchy occurs. This then could lead to potential conflict as there is no authority. Anarchy, in the international context is defined as “absence of

We are all given choices that are unquestionable, and one can choose to be great or fail miserably. In this game of life, anarchy relies on our ability to cooperate with one another instead of being forced into institutions, which may be beneficial or not.

The international system is anarchic. It is very important to notice that anarchy, according to Mearsheimer, does not mean chaos or disorder, but absence of centralized authority, that stands above states and protects

This rationality means they will pursue interests “in terms of power according to offensive neorealism, or in terms of security according to defensive neorealism” (Collard-Wexler, 2006). These two strands have been heavily debated within neorealist theory, particularly by Mearsheimer in favor of offensive neorealism and Waltz in favor of defensive neorealism. John Mearsheimer believes that the goal of states is to maximize power while Waltz believes the goal of states is to “maintain their positions in the system” (Snyder, 2001). There is no punishment for irrational or aggressive behavior because of the anarchic nature of the system so states must rely on themselves for survival, through the use of power. Due to anarchy, states will balance “against their peers by imitation, by boosting their national assets (internal balancing), forming alliances with other states (external balancing) or by adopting the successful power-generating practices of the prospective hegemon (emulation)” (Wohlforth et.al, 2007) and these 3 processes will prevent hegemony.

As anarchy is one of the most debated cases in the International Relations study, many philosopher and scientist argue about the word ‘Anarchy’. In Wendt’s journal “Anarchy is what states make of it”, Alexander Wendt conveys that anarchy does not by chance lead to a self-help system (Wendt A. , 1992). The term anarchy comes from the Greek, 'anarchia', which means 'absence of authority'. Generally, we can define Anarchy as the condition where there is no sovereignty, the rules that disappeared because of the absence of authority. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines the word anarchy as ‘a situation in which there is no organization and control, especially in society, because there is no effective government’. George C. Lewis states that “Anarchy is one of the vaguest and ambiguous words in language” .

The security dilemma is a fundamental concept in IR originate in John Herz’s writing provided the definition of security dilemma back in 1951 “a structural notion in which the self-help attempts of states to look after their security needs tend, regardless of intention, to lead to rising insecurity to others as each interprets its own measures as defensive and measures of others as potentially threatening” (Herz, 1950: 157) which is a classic definition heavily associates with realism. In international system, where there are no world governments or police to provide security for states as a result state exist in an anarchy and the only way to ensure their own security is through self-help. In short, security dilemmas caused by anarchy, however, in this essay,

According to a theory proposed by Hobbes, when anarchy transpires, stronger bordering governments tend to partake in warfare in order to attain more land. When strong, central governments rule, then a time of peace presides without other nations making a political grab for your own land. This is exemplified in a decrease in European wars once the states developed a centralized government. Furthermore, in areas such as the Middle East where weak central governments rule, there tends to be political unrest, civil wars, and fighting amongst the nations.

Philosophers have struggled with determining the proper role of government. In the absence of government and laws, people could do whatever they wanted, and some of them would try to slaughter others and steal their property. This is the state called anarchy. People have realized that the safety of the people and the country would be in jeopardy in such a state. Thus, it is necessary for a country to have a government and/or ruler. However, a ruler must not have absolute power nor lack authority. But the protection of the people and the country alone is not enough for a country to prosper. The property and the natural rights of the people and the government must also be protected. Thus, the proper role of government is to protect the