webdiplomacy.net

Random thoughts, not meant to offend. Real people in lots of countries lost real lives.

Interesting for me, is looking at the death of Qassem Suleimani, through the lens of Diplomacy (the game).

• Suleimani, managed to build a broad coalition across many countries against a stronger power.
• Not against coordination when dealing with daesh
• Major power got kurds to do the all the work then walked away (yet again)
• Pre-emptive strike - expecting your opponent to do something - so get your revenge in first

my 2p.

in diplomacy there are no nukes

Some things are just better dead

Is Iran stupid enough to provoke a country with a mad ruler?

yavuzovic wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 08, 2020 1:36 pm

Is Iran stupid enough to provoke a country with a mad ruler?

Iran's not stupid enough to assume that the US is mad.

In terms of whether Iran can win a military conflict, it can if it defeats America's will to fight (which, whilst not as low as Europe's, is still pretty poor).

As far as Diplomacy equivalences go, this may well be a bounce between rival nations. America and Iran letting each other know that they're not going to surrender access to the proverbial black sea.

A possible alternative explanation is that an "ally" of Suleimani decided he was getting a tad too powerful and "accidentally" forgot to enter the support hold orders. There will be plenty of powerful Iranians who are delighted he has been eliminated and wouldn't lose any sleep over dealing with the devil to achieve it.

In Diplomacy Terms, this is Turkey whose last center is a fleet in Smyrna, who has so far survived by having convinced a 4-center Italy to support-hold him, against a 15-center Russia who hasn't attacked Turkey after securing Ankara and guaranteeing the Turkish fleet stays put instead of terrorizing the good people of Tunis or Naples. Pretending to be a maligned victim, Turkey convinced Italy to attack Russia at his base in Trieste, and after the solo attack failed, we discover that Russia has come under new management and is a bit annoyed that their green "ally" decided to attack them. Imagine their surprise when they discover that the treacherous and traiterous little Turk was the one who conned Italy into making the attack. So now, for the first time in years, Russia responds to Turkey with an angry email instead of $10billion cash. Then, the global chat erupts because "how dare you talk to a weaker power, now we all might need to reconsider our deal with Turkey".

Or maybe Turkey has 2 centers, but their second unit is a fleet in GoL or something, and Russia's response was to take the unguarded center, in "violation" of their "previous agreement" of "never get mad when the little guy attacks you first".

Hey all, this thread became a decent bit more political in nature, so it has been moved to the politics forum

yavuzovic wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 08, 2020 1:36 pm

Is Iran stupid enough to provoke a country with a mad ruler?

The US has backed down since Reagan without European support. Equivalent to attacking a SC to see if you could slip in when the unit holding it moves out.

Considering Iran and the US were allied in the fight against ISIS, the diplomacy equivalent is a stab just after taking the last SC of your common enemy.

I mean, that seems rather obvious.

Just wish they’d be more NMRs in the real world.

orathaic wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:05 am

Considering Iran and the US were allied in the fight against ISIS, the diplomacy equivalent is a stab just after taking the last SC of your common enemy.

I mean, that seems rather obvious.

It's more like two countries attacking the same country for SCs without talking or coordinating their attacks. Not that the country they're attacking can do much about it.