lmaher@uokvax.UUCP (10/24/84)
The following are the rules to The Game of Nations, excerpted from the book of the same name by Miles Copeland, published by Simon & Schuster, 1969. 1. Each player wants not so much to win as to avoid loss. 2. All players have no objective except to keep The Game going. 3. The alternative to The Game of Nations is war. By way of further explanation: "The Game of Nations differs from the other games - poker, war, commerce - in several important respects. First, each player has his own aims, different from those of the others, which constitute "winning"; second, every player is forced by his own domestic circumstances to make moves in the Game which have nothing to do with winning and which, indeed, might impair chances of winning; third, in the Game of Nations there are no winners, only losers. The objective of each player is not so much to win as to avoid loss. "The common objective of players in the Game of Nations is merely to keep the Game going. The alternative to the Game is war." --From a lecture by Zakaria Mohieddin, then Vice- President of the United Arab Republic, to the Egyptian War College, May 1962. This book offers a fascinating look at the moves and countermoves in the Middle East 1947-1967, by a man who was there and knew the players very well. There is also an Appendix, on the "Power Problems of a Revolutionary Government," and a suggested reading list. The latter is 15 years old, of course. Carl {allegra,ihnp4}!convex!ctvax!uokvax!lmaher
newton2@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (11/02/84)
I believe the Miles Copeland to whom you refer is a) High-up CIA person (deputy Director for Plans or some such b) Father of two lads one of whom is a principal of IRS Records, one of which label's artistic groups is The Police, and c) The other of whom is a musician member of The Police. It would take the intellect of a Lyndon Larouche (or a Mae Brussell) to unravel the conspiracies that surely lurk behind these "coincidences" (let's see... Queen Elizabeth MUST have used some pretext to award an MBE to Stuart Copeland (and whispered scret nukewar/subversion instructions to him behind the arras...))