Illustrating US and Soviet Interests through a Short Board Game

• In Event: Games, Simulations, and Tools in Context

Abstract

While it is uncontroversial to remark that the US and Soviet Union were competitors during the Cold War, in discussing the period with students, the fact that US and Soviet interests were nearly identical and that the real danger lay not in a balance of power, but in asymmetry can sometimes be more obscured. To help students understand these dynamics in an American Foreign Policy class, I have them play repeated rounds of the board game 13 Minutes, which is designed to recreate the tension of the Cold War in a short period of time and with relatively simple mechanics. Surveys administered before and after the activity, along with worksheets filled out for each iteration of the game, reveal that students experienced hands-on that the US and Soviet Union had similar goals in competition with each other, and that a runaway imbalance would have had serious ramifications for global stability as the nuclear deterrent diminished.

Author

• Petra Hendrickson, Northern Michigan University