TV Program Shows That War Can Be Fun

Failure meant the end of the world. I had to succeed or we'd all die. Agonizing seconds ticked by on the studio clock as I waited for the decision of the New Zenith ministers.

"We agree," was all they said, but it was enough.

Exulting, I hurried back over the huge cables to Nordo to report the success of my mission to my teammates. One by one the other ministers returned from their negotiations -- and unbelievably everyone has agreed to meet at the peace table.

We felt very proud of ourselves as the round of negotiations drew to a close. Singlehandedly, Nordo had settled the crisis. She would do down in history books as the preserver of world peace.

As the chief ministers arose for the final action choice, though, I had a subtle premonition of disaster. But it was too late for any further discussion; our paths were definitively chosen. Nervously I chewed the end of my Bic pen and waited for the speeches to begin.

New Zenith was the first to talk. Praising us for our persistence, she announced her intention of choosing peace over war. At least one country--in line with her idealistic image of herself--had been honest with us.

Outland was next, and she followed the lead of New Zenith as usual. We statesmen and diplomats understand that situation.

The Fear

Then it was our turn. In our usual wordy, ambiguous style, we deplored the explosive situation, and then we proudly detailed our successful attempt to bring all parties to the peace table. As our chief minister spoke into the microphones, I happened to glance over at the faces of the Inland team, gleaming in the bright lights, and from that moment on I knew what it was to feel both humiliation and fear.

I found my intuition had not failed me as I listened to Inland's chief minister speak. L heard him deny that he had ever agreed to a conference, and I waited with loathing while he announced his intention of continuing the war.

But there was still some hope. Inland was just the puppet of larger, more powerful states. If they chose peace, all might yet be safe.

Slowly the representative for Hamil began to talk. And I discovered he had been lying through his teeth when he had talked peace before, for he now denounced peace and relayed his country's decision to move their troops against Outland. Though a poor country, Hamil had more than enough men to spare.

And then came Transania. I no longer had any doubt of what the outcome would be, and yet a stray glimmer of hope still remained. But it was to be immediately snuffed out, as Transania, New Zenith's equivalent in strength and prestige, affirmed her alliance with Hamil and Inland.

I knew even before Control's announcement that there could only be one possible outcome: World War III. And the frustration was ever so much more galling when I thought how sure of peace we had been, and how proud of what we had done.

The Most Dangerous Game ended with a moment of silence for the world that had been, before the players brought a nuclear holocaust upon themselves. As the TV cameras blinked off I felt a curious letdown--it was all over. In four weeks we had gotten no further than a large inconclusive war; and then in one final week we had brought the world to an end.

Aired on WGBX, UHF Channel 44, The Game is a foreign policy simulation show. The purpose of the game is to teach an understanding of the problems diplomats face in crisis situations, and the pressures under which they must make vital decisions.

Six teams, each composed of five ministers, each representing Six countries, try to settle the crisis situation through discussion and negotiations. The TV cameras focus on one team, Transania, except during formal statements. The audience participates actively as Transania's advisors, simulating the country's political elite.

I had joined the game late, but even so was caught up in the excitement immediately. The format of the game was explained: first each team makes a policy statement -- "action choice" -- to Control, in which no lies are allowed; then a world TV statement, in which truth is optional; and finally negotiations, during which the teams can talk to each other.

It was easy to fall into the trap of believing the myths we created for world TV. Once Transania claimed they had shot down a New Zenith plane, and had captured the pilot. Five minutes later they "discovered" that it was really one of their own planes they had hit by mistake, but by that time New Zenith had accepted the "truth" of their accusation, and was claiming that it had been a Hamil plane with New Zenith markings, flown by a New Zenith defector.

There is a strategy planning period in between each step of the game, and this is when the TV audience gets to take part. Questions are posed by the Transanian ministers, and the political elite is asked to phone in their decisions. Transania generally follows their advice, making them active participants in a real sense. And the television viewers get almost as involved as the players: the one time when their advice was disregarded, they phoned in and demanded impeachment of their ministers.

The fact that their voice really made a difference in the game seems to have attracted an audience which included many high school students, a group normally resistent to the inherently passive TV learning experience. Each week one or two members of the political elite, usually high school students, were invited to read a policy statement to the Transanians.

Ideally the audience watches the show in small groups, and discusses each stage of the game, calling in their decisions. Success with the teenage audience has led to proposals for using televised simulations in high school classroom situations.

The simulation was written by Martin Gordon, an employee of ABT, Inc., a Cambridge research firm. He said that WGBX's innovation of audience participation made little difference to a basically difficult job. The problem is trying to direct the action of the players without denying them the right to make free decisions.

Gordon then explained how the historical perspective restricts the possible outcomes of the game: "The situation must be analyzed with respect to what kinds of actions the real countries involved were reasonably open to take. Transania stood for Russia, New Zenith for the U.S., Nordo for India, Inland for North Korea, Outland for South Korea, and Hamil was Red China. Even though there were six teams, each with four policy choices, there actually were only ten or twelve separate possible outcomes."

Since a general war situation brings the game to an inevitable end, Gordon told me that he tried to avoid any such decisive results. An outcome which keeps the game going, such as large indecisive battle instead of a clear-cut victory, is therefore his preferred choice.

Debriefing

After the fourth game in the series, we had a general debriefing. Many of us felt that using the same four action choices throughout the month had been very restrictive. Transania was indignant that her proposal to divide Hamil between herself and New Zenith could not be considered because it was not one of their four policy choices. The proscribed actions limited creative thinking, and prevented original solutions to the situation.

Gordon defended his game by reiterating that simulation is speculative history, and that nothing can be done out of the historical perspective. In real situations there are often only a few alternatives open to the involved countries, and it is this which puts such great pressure on diplomats; in order to simulate the real situation, there must be some restraints.

The idea of simulating situations in order to better understand them has a long history of its own. The earliest simulated game is chess, which began in India in the 7th century. The U.S. government became interested in using foreign policy gaming in the 1950's. As training for foreign service officers, the game technique was not a great success. However, the Foreign Policy Association, a foreign affairs adult education group, found simulation gaming useful in giving amateurs some empathy for the professionals. FPA thereafter loaned their copyrighted game to GBX. Simulation is not only useful in foreign affairs; Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School both use a form of simulation in their programs.

Unfortunately, simulation is a difficult and costly process. Writing a simulation takes one man about a month and costs from $9,000 to $10,000. For any participants, there is also an enormous outlay of time: CLUG (community Land Use Game), a business simulation game, has been played for as long as nine hours at a time. All these factors makes it hard to offer such a game to the public; the expense alone limits its availability to all but wealthy organizations.

WGBX, a new outgrowth of WGBX Channel 2, the educational television station in Boston, solved two problems at once with The Most Dangerous Game. The element of audience participation changed TV watching from a completely passive to a partially active pastime. And the use of the mass media permits the public to take part in a game simulation without paying the usual high costs.

All the team members were volunteers. Members of New Zenith were Negro students, Outland was the League of Women Voters, Nordo was foreign students; the members of Hamil were ministers of various denominations, and Inland players were students.

The Transanians, as the team that was constantly on the air, were the most important. Players on the Transanian team included a lawyer, a poet, a Selectwoman, and two Harvard graduate students. The only times they were not on camera were during policy and world TV statements.

The two graduate students, aware of the preponderance of serious discussion in the game, tried several times to lighten the atmosphere.

Each of us players also had to be actors; we were told what our country's aims were, and that we should act in trying to implement them. Thus the economic minister of Transania was insistent on holding out for peace, in opposition to most of his team members. It became clear that you learn more from a simulation when you are playing a well-defined role than when you are simply reacting personally, because the team objectives are often lost in the personal reactions. By adopting a character and a country, the player virtually submerges himself in the situation and thus plays more realistically.

There were many minor technical flaws in The Most Dangerous Game, such as technicians and cameras on camera, which probably could have been ironed out if the game had continued. However, it is now off the air, because the second simulation, which was to be the Suez crisis, was not ready in time for the television staff to prepare the show.

An important result of this experiment is the interested reaction of the audience; given the chance, they did prefer active participation to passive entetrainment. And if, as producer Lee said, the purpose of televising the game is "to make more people more sensitive to the problems involved in formulating foreign policy," it seemed to be a great success.

The simulation games end in war all too often. A member of Inland said, "We all found war a more entertaining solution." Of course, as in a card game for matchsticks, the players had nothing to lose