Give the backdrop of the last few blog posts, I thought it would be interesting to engage one of my fellow lobbyists from Washington State University about his opinions on the ever expanding Belt and Road Initiative coming out of China. We talked at length about the widespread scope of the infrastructure project, as well as the impacts that it may have on international marketplaces in both short term and long term impacts.

The Belt and Road Initiative is a part of China’s plan to become the dominant global superpower by 2050, through infrastructure investments across the planet, incorporating concepts like network and financial development for sovereign states cresting into the first world standing.

Question: What do you think are the short term impacts of China’s Belt and Road initiative on the socioeconomic power rankings globally?

MJ: It’s a more of a long game that they’re playing, where the short term impacts are founded in countries becoming more skeptical about China’s influence in military and economic position, but the countries won’t stop China’s expansion because of lack of progress in effective intellectual property controls via failed trade projects in the Eurasia region. The China perspectives that countries in the West hold try to focus on being more independent of China in an attempt to beat them, instead of cooperate with them, which leads to diplomatic quagmires.

Question: If the Belt & Road Initiative succeeds in its long term goals, what effects do you think it will it have on markets in terms of currency dominance?

MJ: Currently, the United States Dollar (USD) is the dominant currency in global trade, due to the high level of international and economic influence, but that has become more and more threatened by poorly executed state efforts, such as the Iran deal. The downside is that China has the benefit of being able to manipulate their currency as much as they want, which allows them more freedom in economic control. If their plan succeeds they will establish themselves as an international superpower, their economic influence will trickle into their trading partners, allowing them to control market forces. Their market controls could hamper the economic freedoms of surrounding countries and limit market engagement with non-trading countries and sovereign states.

Question: If you were going to give advice to state diplomats on engaging China to promote long term diplomatic success, what would you tell them?

MJ: I would tell them that their is probably a lot of value not trying China’s industries from growing by trying to regulate them, such as the United States trying to hamper telecommunications companies, and to avoid trying to build wonky provision based trade deals that try to limit growth in industry. The focus of the solution should be towards working with allies who are trading with them to limit the spread of the initiative’s influence internationally.

I want to thank Mitchell for his time and support of this work, as he provided a lot of insights to me about the dynamic pressure that China is beginning to put onto global markets and how that changes them. If U.S. State efforts don’t become more sophisticated quickly, it could lead to a failure in securing long term geopolitical and economic power positions for the United States.

In the 1980s, perception of the United States Armed Forces was at a dismally low point, primarily due to complex problems surrounding interventionism internationally. America was still reeling from the backlash of the Vietnam War of the 1970s, and the US military was carrying the haunting images of destruction on its back. In the summer of 1986 though, the United States Navy received a significant boost in recruitment and perception from an unlikely source: Hollywood.

By cooperating with the filmmakers by allowing them to use F-14 Tomcats and the San Diego Naval Facility, the US Navy gained a valuable tool in drawing in new potential recruits for service: dramatic cinema full of Hollywood A-listers. This in turn spurred a new appreciation for the Navy and the Top Gun program.

This appreciation in turn showed itself remarkably in an interesting trend: the increase in applications to the Navy and more specifically, looking to join the Top Gun program. Due to the glamour and adrenaline pumping action depicted in the movie, tied with the camaraderie of the service and the nature of the work, recruiters saw a spike in people wanting to join after seeing the movie, and while they weren’t officially allowed to recruit in tandem with the movie, would sit outside theaters where it was playing to draw in new potential recruits.

This campaign was a huge success for the image of the Navy and the Armed forces as a whole, and the continuous earned media it provides the Navy in the spread of its success can’t be understated. I think this movie presents the gold standard of how to effectively develop pro-military propaganda through the medium of blockbuster cinema, and echoes of the technique can be seen in similar movies that followed it.

In the modern era, one of the largest players in wide scale geopolitical engagements is the Department of Defense (DoD). With almost 2.9 million employees around the world, the DoD’s scope and influence should not be understated. The Department of Defense is a component of the executive branch of the federal government, with a budget over $700 billion annually and operating in over 160 countries, established to implement organizational control over the United States Armed Forces. This organization operates to deliver the defense needs that the American public demand, and ensure safety and security for the country and its allies.

The organization’s digital communication effort can be analyzed through three effective mediums: The DoD’s website, the DoD’s Facebook, and the DoD’s Twitter Page. The Department of Defense incorporates a significant spread of websites in their purview, have 58.7 million visits across their network in the last 90 days. In the last 30 days, almost 3 million of the views went to the DoD’s organizational websites.

Comparatively, the DoD’s Twitter page carries 5.8 million followers, and has tweeted over 25,000 times, and the DoD’s Facebook page has only 1.6 million likes, with a 2% engagement rate.

These metrics help build an underlying framework for understanding the reception of the DoD’s established brand and messaging. With a prioritization clearly established for engagement through the web domain, the messaging has a consistent and high response rate from website traffic, with a high diversity in subdomain exploration. Comparatively, this presents the assumption that less resources are being directed towards Facebook and Twitter management, which would explain the lower reception rates for each of those platforms.

Given these data points, the media engagement strategy as presented looks heavily focused on web domains, which is garnering consistent success in page views and reception, and less of a focus on social media channels, primarily due to the lack of response that they garner in direct engagement. Due to the information presented, if the strategy is to focus on web domain interaction, then I think it is successful.

References

Dept of Defense. (2019, June 23). Retrieved June 23, 2019, from https://analytics.usa.gov/defense/

Our Story. (n.d.). Retrieved June 23, 2019, from https://www.defense.gov/Our-Story/

U.S. Dept of Defense. (2019, June 23). Retrieved June 23, 2019, from https://foller.me/deptofdefense

US Department of Defense (DoD). (2019, June 23). Retrieved June 23, 2019, from https://likealyzer.com/report/deptofdefense

Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) for the United States Federal Government are employed to solve a litany of diplomatic issues, and are segmented into five major officer groups; consular, economic, management, political, and public diplomacy. While all of these officer groups are incredibly important to maintaining effective soft power internationally, for this post we’ll stick with the economic track, due to the inherent connection it shares to game theory in geopolitical contexts. To be employed as a FSO, there are 13 dimensions that need to be fulfilled: composure, cultural adaptability, experience and motivation, information integration and analysis, initiative and leadership, judgement, objectivity/integrity, oral communication, planning and organizing, resourcefulness, working with others, written communication, and quantitative analysis.

After selecting the career track, the first step in becoming an FSO is to take the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT). Upon passing the FSOT, the next steps are to submit a personal narrative to the Qualification Evaluation Panel, who review it. Following this, there is a day-long oral assessment which measures personal ability in demonstrating the 13 dimensions listed above. After the oral assessment, security and medical clearances are performed. Once this is completed, a Suitability Review Panel examines the file to determine employment in the Foreign Service, which puts you on the Register, which rank-orders successful candidates via their careers tracks.

To be successful in this process, the State Department recommends doing several preparatory actions that will improve candidacy. The first of these steps in the employment process is to take the practice FSOT, which gives the applicant a detailed understanding of the rigorous preparation required to be considered a qualified candidate for an FSO position. They also recommend reviewing the Oral Assessment Information Guide as a preparatory step for the oral assessment. Some of the other components for success that the State Department outlines include knowledge and proficiency of foreign languages, a history of military service, and a commitment to foreign service work.

Charles Ries, a diplomat with nearly 4 decades of foreign service experience, outlined some of the key components of long term success in the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA). Some of the factors he pointed to included leadership, interpersonal skills, and substantial experience and knowledge. He advised that these skills, paired with effective assignment undertaking to develop strong bureau to bureau connections were vital in becoming a senior level FSO.

References

13 Dimensions. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2019, from https://careers.state.gov/work/foreign-service/officer/13-dimensions/

8 Steps to Becoming a Foreign Service Officer. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2019, from https://careers.state.gov/work/foreign-service/officer/test-process/

Career Tracks for Foreign Service Officers. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2019, from https://careers.state.gov/work/foreign-service/officer/career-tracks/

United States of America, Department of State, Foreign Service Officer. (2016, March). Foreign Service Officer Oral Assessment Information Guide. Retrieved June 16, 2019, from https://careers.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/

Foreign-Service-Officer-Oral-Assessment-Information-Guide.pdfFSO Practice Test – Careers. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2019, from https://careers.state.gov/fsopracticetest/

Ries, C. (n.d.). Economic Officers for the Future. Retrieved June 16, 2019, from https://www.afsa.org/economic-officers-future

The Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT). (2019, February 20). Retrieved June 16, 2019, from https://home.pearsonvue.com/fsot

Developing a global marketplace through infrastructure expansion became a key component of China’s geopolitical strategy in 2013, with the paired introduction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which later combined to become the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This initiative plays a large role in understanding economic policy shifts in global perspectives, as it is the key component in China’s strategy in becoming the economic leader in not only the Asia region, but internationally as well. The strategy incorporates a wide array of infrastructure development projects, ranging from hard form infrastructure to digital development.

Developing a global marketplace through infrastructure expansion became a key component of China’s geopolitical strategy in 2013, with the paired introduction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which later combined to become the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This initiative plays a large role in understanding economic policy shifts in global perspectives, as it is the key component in China’s strategy in becoming the economic leader in not only the Asia region, but internationally as well. The strategy incorporates a wide array of infrastructure development projects, ranging from hard form infrastructure to digital development.

On June 6th, in Moscow, China and Russia held a summit in which the Chinese technology company Huawei signed a critical development deal with Russian telecommunications company MTS that would lead to the implementation of 5g networks across Russia. This network expansion operates as a key component of the Belt and Road Initiative’s reach into the Asia and Europe regions, as political complications internationally have threatened the long term financial health of Huawei given the recent ban on U.S. companies selling to Huawei due to fears of the company spying on behalf of Beijing. This ban in turn could lead to China taking chip manufacturing into their own hands through the ‘Made in China 2025’ initiative, which would spark international strife between China and the United States in the technology development market.

The geopolitical impact of this in regards to game theory is entirely based on the notion that China’s long term strategy is to play many non-zero sum games with international geopolitical partners, for the purpose of winning the zero sum game for global marketplace superiority against the United States. By approaching the long term conflict with longitudinal perspectives in mind, it allows China to garner compartmentalized support from current allies to the United States in the effort to extend influence across as wide of a spectrum as possible. With this support, it puts the United States in a precarious position of maintaining superiority in influence as economic and political relationships strain due to a sharp rise in increasingly protectionist approaches to foreign relations.

Given these factors, if the United States doesn’t approach the Belt and Road Initiative and China as a burgeoning economic superpower with cooperative tact and mindfulness of long-term relationships with allied countries, they will soon be relegated to a lower position on the global economic influence leader board, which in turn acts as a threat to the function of being able to effectively capitalize on the marketplace that has been established. The long term impacts of this include the United States becoming a lagging country in regards to indicators like global trade and the influence of alliances internationally.

References

Agencies. (2019, June 06). China’s Huawei signs deal to develop 5G network in Russia. Retrieved June 9, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/06/chinas-huawei-signs-deal-to-develop-5g-network-in-russia

Chatzky, A., & McBride, J. (2019, May 21). China’s Massive Belt and Road Initiative. Retrieved June 9, 2019, from https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative

McBride, J., & Chatzky, A. (2019, May 13). Is ‘Made in China 2025’ a Threat to Global Trade? Retrieved June 9, 2019, from https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/made-china-2025-threat-global-trade

Game Theory, and economic principles, was revolutionized heavily by John Von Neumann in the early 20th century. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1903, then János von Neumann was a child prodigy who specialized in mathematics. Having earned his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Budapest in 1926, he moved from the tumultuous regions of Europe to the United States in 1930, where he studied at Princeton.

John Von Neumann’s work in mathematics introduced the concept of Game Theory through “The Theory of Parlor Games” in 1928, which focused on two-party zero-sum games. His work was expanded to include a focus on economic models in the 1930s, and the two concepts became tightly interwoven. Neumann’s work in mathematics spread across a litany of different disciplines, including fields like hydrodynamics, ballistics, and statistics. His academic rigor and brilliant mind allowed him to become a member of the Manhattan Project and near the end of World War II he was heavily engaged in consulting for governmental committees.

John Von Neumann’s work in mathematics made him the foremost mathematician of the 20th century, and he excelled in applying his mathematical approach to concepts well outside the pure mathematics he was comfortable with. One of his most prescient quotes given his range of experience is, “Can we survive technology?”

After writing well over 100 papers in mathematics and related disciplines, John Von Neumann died at the age of 53 on February 8, 1957. Following his death, his final work, published in 1958, titled “The Computer and the Brain” examined the similarities between computational machines and the human system. His collected works are still in publication today, and can be purchased online.

References

John von Neumann. (n.d.). Retrieved June 2, 2019, from https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Neumann.html

John von Neumann: Life, Work, and Legacy. (n.d.). Retrieved June 2, 2019, from https://www.ias.edu/von-neumann

Conflict is one of the core components that is shared in geopolitical discourse and game theory. When sovereign states are in conflict with each other, they possess a diverse set of tools to approach the situation and resolve it. Geopolitical conflict’s logical extreme, when in a zero-sum game, is military conflict. In the past, military conflict has largely focused on shifting borders and toppling regimes, but as technology has improved, the context of conflict has become significantly more complex. In the modern era, international threats to national sovereignty have become more focused on the long term impacts of climate change and cyber attacks, as well as global terror threats.

In-line with these shifts, military conflicts have become much more sophisticated as well. With the utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles, cyber-warfare, and economic constraints, the role of the military in global conflict has shifted away from purely fighting wars on the ground to a more holistic approach to warfare. This has caused a new type of arms race, which focuses on improving the capacity of war fighting through cyberspace.

This prompts a serious debate on the necessity of conventional warfare in non-diplomatic conflicts. Conventional warfare maintains its role in modern international conflicts for a plethora of reasons, but it comes with significant costs to both participants in the combative struggle. These costs include loss of life, financial burdens, and stressing marketplaces by reducing the capacity to trade with potential consumers. Each of these costs has to be weighed heavily against the benefits that can be gained from engaging in a military conflict, which can range from limiting the inhumane treatment of citizens, expanding influence, and spreading ideology. This produces a complex calculus for military and political leaders to engage in, which in turn limits the effectiveness and capacity of military operations outright by delaying decision making through deliberation. Each factor that contributes to delay decreases the capacity of the military force, which in turn extends the potential for conflict longer and longer.

Comparatively, diplomatic and economic solutions to sovereign state conflicts carry there own costs and benefits, but tend to focus more on approaching the conflict as a non-zero sum game, whereas military conflict tends to be a zero-sum game. This difference in approach based out of game theory brings up an excellent thought process on the two modes of games, and how to most effectively continue propagating success for sovereign states. Given that there are definite necessities for military engagement in conflicts, the biggest questions to be asked are when and why? Through the complex calculus expressed earlier, political and military leaders have to identify when the ends specifically justify the means to answer these questions, and be ready to bear the weight of that justification.

Conceptually, this puts forward an interesting representation of military conflict as a tool to achieve results where diplomacy and market forces cant. Given that representation, and what has been expressed about game theory, the use of military conflict spuriously could breed disastrous results, not only for those engaged at the ground level, but also those making the call. In American history, the primary examples of this would be the military conflict in Iraq that has crumbled into an chaotic power struggle, and the war in Vietnam. These conflicts were indicative of spurious military engagement, and the outcomes of them are apparent in the long term effects they had on the global perception of the United States as the de facto leader in global affairs, as well as those engaged individually in war fighting efforts.

Game Theory, as developed by the mathematician John Von Neumann, is a strategic science that attempts to find ideal solutions to complex issues, by looking at the courses of action that players (participants) in the game can take. As a framework of conceptualization, game theory operated initially as a way to identify efficient ways to succeed in zero-sum games, where the winners and losers are in pure conflict with each other. As the science progressed, game theory began to incorporate more systems of games, the other most notable being a non-zero sum game, which function more as a mechanism for reducing conflict by utilizing cooperation, as there can be multiple winners and no losers. The difference between the two major modes games can be operated through can be summarized with the distinction of “competitive” versus “cooperative” games. Primarily used as a function of economic mathematics, game theory provides significant insight into the complex interactions in every strata of influence, to help identify the most effective solution, ranging from resolving arguments you have with friends to finding international peace between countries across the globe.

Geopolitics, as an extension of this thought, looks specifically at the geographical and international contexts of political action and thought, and the rippling impacts that occur because of them. Coined by Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén in the early 20th century, geopolitics offers a broader approach to understanding both diplomatic and economic interactions.

Given these two concepts, the purpose of this blog will be to look at the intersections that they have in regards to both current events that are happening in the geopolitical spectrum, as well as analyzing past historical events and assessing impacts that may have occurred as an outcome of them. This blog will focus largely on issues like tariffs, trade deals, military engagements, and treaties to identify the economic and sociopolitical impact that they have on the states engaged in them, their cultures, and the expression of said cultures.

My name is Jonathan Brown, and I am the author for this blog on game theory, geopolitics, and culture. I am a Senior at Washington State University studying Communication and Technology, and the purpose of this blog is to investigate the intersections of geopolitical discourse and game theory as part of a series of assignments for Media Strategies and Techniques for Public Relations, COMSTRAT 383.

Outside of this class, I am currently working on a lot of personal writing that focuses on development and refinement of the human condition, as well as working and looking for jobs in my desired career of tech consulting.

In this class, I hope to find a significant amount of insight in how to effectively communicate with people complex issues that are hard to grasp, and being able to present them in an easily consumable manner, as well as improving my ability to produce web content.

Readers for this blog can expect to find information about complex interactions between geopolitical conflicts and how they apply to game theory, as well as the impacts that those conflicts have on economics and culture.