What's happening / TLDR: Developer diaries introduce details of Espiocracy - Cold War strategy game in which you play as an intelligence agency. You can catch up with the most important dev diary (The Vision) and find out more on Steam page.
John Lewis Gaddis cleverly compared the Cold War to the Peloponnesian War. Grand strategic stalemates, he wrote, dominated statecraft of both conflicts. Individual victories and defeats were irrelevant in the face of larger attempts to break the stalemate, put the enemy in an unfavorable position, and subdue the opponent in the long term.
This observation not only fits the scarcity of hot wars in the Cold War - but it also aptly characterizes a few conventional conflicts that did erupt during the period. Rather than wars of tactical opportunity, they were almost exclusively total wars of destruction and survival. There was nothing subtle in Korean War, Arab-Israeli Wars, or Operation Desert Storm. Naturally, this level of gravitas requires special decision process behind these rare but important ends of modern foreign policy.
This dev diary explores some parts of the what, how, and why behind grand strategic decision-making of Espiocracy. Wars, in one sentence, are declared to pursue or protect national interests.
Governments
Player persona different than a nation or a nation spirit opens entire fascinating avenues of politics that can expand the grandeur of grand strategy gameplay beyond usual approaches. Here, a government is not a single-minded entity - it is a group of influential actors, including the player, which jointly makes grand strategic decisions.
In a rabbit hole of sorts:
- Actors are appointed to precise governmental bodies (such as two chambers of legislature)
- Governmental bodies set legal powers of residing actors in the decision-making process
- Bodies, legal powers, and appointments are defined by the constitution and electoral law
- Constitution and laws can be crafted, amended, and changed by appropriate bodies
(Dot chart doesn't work yet.) In this case, after the election, parties will try to form coalition government, appoint prime minister (probably Petr Zenkl from victorious CSNS), divide cabinet positions, and start working on a new constitution since Czechoslovakia in 1946 has more or less unregulated constitutional situation. In the real life, communist KSC won the elections, Gottwald became prime minister, and then the government worked - with a coup along the way - to craft communist constitution. Alternate history right there, just 2 months in!
It's not exactly correct, still needs work on historical accuracy. Sham elections in the USSR do happen in the game though and can be somewhat relevant for internal factions of the communist party.
This level of detail gives voice to political leaders, cabinet members, political parties, military leaders, and naturally the player. Legal powers at the moment include the ability to propose an action (such as a declaration of war), and then down the line approve, reject, or veto. Ideally, the game will follow roughly realistic paths where for instance members of a political party sponsor a bill, which is then voted in parliament chambers and has to be signed by the president (whose veto may be rejected by a significant majority in the parliament). Granularity is defined in the context of precise actions - establishment of an embargo may follow a different path than signing a strategic treaty.
Legal back and forth is supplied by an unlimited amount of politicking. Actors can meet, convince each other, exchange favors, provide evidence, exert pressure, threaten, and so on. In especially important cases, such as joining NATO or declaring wars, a covert meeting takes place, where the most influential members of the government (including the player) jointly decide about the future of the nation.
National Interests
After exploring what and how, we need the why to complete the picture.
Populations and all actors profess views - mental stances towards subjects, for instance, "fear of nuclear war". National interest is a special form of a view, narrowed down to a single stance ("focus on"), common for many actors and usually for the entire country.
Examples include:
- Acquiring nuclear weapons
- Rebuilding country after war
- "Supporting free peoples of the world"
- Opening foreign markets
- Promoting human rights
- Preventing the emergence of hostile major powers or failed states
- Controlling neighboring countries
- Preserving neutrality
- Protecting own citizens abroad
- Survival of the nation (in terminal cases, often near hot wars)
National interests mark n-th evolution of various foci, threats, and mission trees that were tested in Espiocracy. This time, it's flexible and dynamic guidance for actors, point of conflict between entities in the world, capture the flag for the player, and attempt to decipher very convoluted geopolitical situation of the Cold War and beyond.
Let's explore details of a seemingly obvious national interest: rebuilding the country after the war. Members of the government may pursue actions that advance this case - sign treaties to acquire materials, enter alliances that will revitalize the economy, and accept investment offers with strings attached. There may be conflicting ways to achieve the goal: some actors may argue for the communist model of industrialization, whereas others may vouch for the capitalist approach. The government may subsidize particular sectors of the economy, increase the influence of industrial actors, allow trade unions to thrive, and be especially sensitive to labor strikes. Player as an intelligence agency may procure strategic materials, industrial blueprints, and technology, monitor the delicate balance between investment and exploitation. Most importantly, since national interests are generally objective (well-known internationally), enemies may outright target them, disrupting the efforts with a plethora of tools - from propaganda degrading the country in the eyes of investors to outright sabotage of industrial facilities - which can be intercepted, counteracted, or prevented from happening.
Even this kind of simple and non-aggressive national interest (literally building tall) can become a bone of contention. Imagine what happens when it comes to nukes, ideologies, populations, territorial disputes, colonies, or terrorism!
National interests are set dynamically by the situation (such as destruction -> rebuilding), military logic (such as the acquisition of nuclear weapons -> prohibiting other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons), and direct political decisions (including covert ones, with the acquisition of nuclear weapons being one of them). Returning to the declaration of war, national interests here usually take the place of the good old casus belli (with CB still possible but less significant), where "protecting all Americans abroad" as national interest becomes one of the arguments for invading Grenada in 1983 (600 U.S. citizens studying medicine on the island).
Final Remarks
Now we're ready to explore Conventional Wars in Espiocracy, to be described in the next dev diary
If you're not already wishlisting Espiocracy, consider doing it:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1670650/Espiocracy/
There is also a small community around Espiocracy:
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"We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow" - Henry Palmerstone, British Prime Minister