What? I thought all this was about Sakhalin Island? As late as into 19th century the Chinese still maintained and owned the island, but lost it to Japan and Russia in that very century :P Later Russia took it all after Japans defeat in WW2. To me this fits the story like a glove, except for the size of the island that is. Also note that they've found oil on the island resulting in a oilboom after the fall of the Soviet Union. I seriously think they mean this Island.
Gives an interesting POV in regards to Chinas business activity and how a lot of it supports terrorism / anti-western related countries along with general expansion across the globe which a lot seems to point towards the securing of natural resources and safe logistics routes mostly hidden from the hands of the western world.
Interesting book and do like how the author goes around the asia region explaining his theories supported also by facts and data in regards to Chinas expansionism.
@Witzbold: Um, we buy our oil from Saudi Arabia which in turn supports Wahabbi terrorists and whatnot, many of whom have connections with Al Qaeda and so on. I've read the book, but a lot of his assertions don't click together.
Instead of reading that, I suggest that you take a look at Rand.org . At least their people show up for Congressional testimonies more often than any other think-tanks.
@PoweredByHentai: Yeah Im trying to catch up on all the stuff there. Since now will be getting back into the swing of reading related subjects more full time with other issues having been taken care of on my side.
Personally I had picked up that book in regards to seeing his views on tactics and such and was not expecting the whole part with his pov in regards to the situation with china and the rest of the world.
Still though overall Id trust the US of A over China regardless of all the crazy bullshit we pull around the world during our span of history.
@Witzbold: Meh, I'm skeptical of both sides mostly because of the difficulty involved in discerning the facts that each side present. This is why analysis involves looking at a lot of things and then finding a pattern that fits to discern the motives behind each side.
There are times where you can actually preempt the other side by taking a strategy that blunts/negates the advantages that the other side enjoys. The Chinese strategy at the moment seems to be to maintain the political status quo while improving its self-defence capabilities.
@PoweredByHentai: If you ever saw my bookshelf you would see I agree with you 200% in regards to making a decision based off of various sources of information then attempting to crosscheck.
Though I have been personally looking into the private sector situation more although unfortunate I have not had as much time as I used to in regards to reading and such.
Currently am trying to catch up on the South East Asia situation. With all the reading ive been doing I swear to god my corrective eye surgery is going bust.
AJ, you bring up something I have always wanted game companies to do. With all the emphasis on realism these days, they need to bring in real world experts, and I'm not talking Bethesda and their soil erosion.
I personally would like to play a mech game, where the mechs were designed by mechanical engineers, and not artists.
AJ you are now my favorite Kotaku writer. As someone who spent too much time studying Japanese foreign policy and the Kuril Island situation that was awesome. As a side note... I had a heavily inebriated Russian professor who also mentioned some of the Kuril situation to be due to fishing rights. Dragon Rising would be way cooler if it was about fishing rights!
Sometimes these plots that game developers come up with makes my head want to explode and this was one of them!
Interesting info about the conflict. I myself realized there's something awfully wrong wit the "US fighting ON BEHALF OF RUSSIA" part.
Two things i want to relate here:
1) Chinese economy: While it is universally known that its economy IS good, the numbers (gdp, etc) are official numbers (can not be trusted), and more importantly, if any of you try to make any kind of transaction in a n international stock exchange market (US, Eurozone, Israel, etc) you'll find out that you CAN NOT make almost any tranzactions with 100% chinese controlled companies FROM china, because there is no "translation" for their value (in short, you don't know WHAT they are exactly worth just so you won't be able to trade with them). So i'm not so sure about the current chinese economy being in SUCH a big boom, it's more probably hyped because they want to attract investors (smart!)
2) "After all, sometimes real-life is scarier that the "what-ifs" video game developers imagine for us". Damn right. I am Israeli, 23 years old. All my friends are about that age. What that means is that we all went through our 3 year army service, and met numerous soldiers/generals/etc. While we did not go through an actual war (luckily) we have trained for 3 years and patrolled mostly hostile territory, and i must tell you, games like call of duty 4 and bad company are for real soldiers what burnout is for F1 racers. The only shooter game that REMOTELY resembles a war/patrol in enemy territory on the PSYCHOLOGICAL level is dead space, hardest difficulty, volume to the maximum and worst armor.
@benkatz:
That's interesting. I too have heard that our media (i.e. Games and movies) hasn't even come close to mimicking real life situations like being in a war.
Though, you say Dead Space on hardest difficulty level Psychologically resembles the real thing more than anything else. Did you really mean that? That's crazy. I've yet to get that game but I really wanna get it.
@benkatz: Dead Space? That's an interesting choice. Is it the lack of the typical game hud that does it for you? I'm a veteran as well (albeit, from the other side of the world) and it is pretty obvious that CoD is an arcade shooter... But Dead Space is more realistic than ArmA/OFP to you? Hmm.
@Tacticalspoon: I hesitate to speak for him, but the guy said psychologically. ArmA and Flashpoint are realistic in, uh, real terms, but the fact of the matter is that you're not so much terrified and oppressed when wandering around in ArmA as you are mindful and cautious. There is a difference between psychological realism and realistic ballistics.
@CapnCourage: Yes, I
would think the sheer terror of what could happen is more reflective of actual combat. A realistic sim like ArmA seems closer to what it would be like to play Paintball. Exciting for sure, but with the underlying knowledge that nobody is going home in a box.
I think that a video game centered around a war between China and Russia would be far more interesting. Despite both nations having nuclear weapons(not that this has stopped video game stories before) it seems that a war between those two would be far more likely than a US-China or a US-Russia conflict.
They have a large history of border skirmishes and such. Despite relations having cooled post-Soviet Russia it still seems far more likely for those two to go to war in one way or another than the US going up against either one.
I just think it's an interesting concept for a video game story. How would the rest of the world react? Could NATO or Japan get pulled into the conflict? What about areas in the region that are very tense right now like North/South Korea? It would be cool switching between the two sides and the US/Europe taking a more backseat role.
Regarding the JSDF, a few modifications have been made to the constitution as of last year that allows the situations the JSDF can participated to be...shall we say...more vaguely interpreted. Hence why they could deploy in the Indian Ocean and Iraq on a limited basis.
It's not unforseeable that further changes could happen in the future, especially with the current government wanting the withdrawal of some of the US forces stationed in Japan. (though, admittedly, they haven't really talked about doing anything to the JSDF either.)
@EarlHamit: Asia, in general, doesn't consider the modifications to be that dangerous. What does piss off the Asian nations is the issue of resurrecting the "War Ministry". You can blame Junichiro Koizumi for that.
International relations major and a fan of Operation flashpoint here. The most obvious err in Dragon Rising is the fact that two nuclear armed states go to war, which hasn't happened (not really counting soviet-US proxy wars during the cold war) because they have enough nukes to have a second strike capability which would give the horrible outcome of mutual assured destruction.
@SadhviBabawaba: Well, that's not quite true. The late 1990's India/Pakistan skirmishes occured when both had operational nukes. But by and large yes- and I don't think any nuclear actor wants to get into a war with a nuclear power and risk pushing/getting pushed to the "use it or lose it" point.
Currently a student at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. I always tried to tell people how my International Relations major would help me in the video game industry. Thanks for the help!
@Kyang: The Indian flashpoint is centered around Arunachal Pradesh or something and has a lot to do with Tibet's land claims. The Taiwanese flashpoint is currently a non-issue as long as the KMT is in charge.
The China vs India issue is partly caused by the US and partly caused by general stupidity throughout the Indian political and military leaderships. The Henderson-Brooks Report reviewed the whole fiasco of why the Indian army failed so miserably and so completely. Even now, that report has not been released to the public and only one historian has had access to it.
Aren't at least some of the Tom Clancey games based on security dilemmas? I seem to recall that being the subject of the first Ghost Recon and it's expansions... and it did indeed make for an interesting game.
@AoE: The first Ghost Recon involved Russia fucking with Georgia over South Ossetia... which is not disimilar to what happened in 2008. It's not hard to make a cogent storyline dealing with real world issues- which makes me wonder why fewer do.
@le_garcon: Because it is politically sensitive and sometimes making such stories with insider knowledge of our defenses and whatnot would compromise our security.
All I know of Clancy is that he has a very good understanding of politics, especially insider knowledge. Beyond that, I don't even know if he is a retired spook or not.
@Witzbold: Lol. But who would be cruel enough to shoot at pandas? They're so cuddly and cute!
On a side note, Korea's professional StarCraft tournaments have this Panda Curse that always results in the player who killed the Panda to lose the game.
Real life is definately far far scarier than anything these guys can dream up. You couldn't make-up some of the shit that goes on in international relations and politics.
@(Zombie) WDYC: Actually it wouldnt be that hard considering all they would need is just 1 person on the team who actually has read various books on regional / military history.
Just finding someone like that to fit in perfectly with the project would be another issue.
MGS4 what a lot of people miss is that it had some real strong and real points in regards to the boom with "private sector" / contractors, PTSD, illegal arms trade and terrorism.
Though its quite understandable that most folks would miss a lot of those important points mainly because people dont study those types of issues asides from what they might hear from the various news sources.
By far MGS4 is one of the most advanced games when it comes to actually talking about said issues and give the player a chance to consider how their own actions tie in with the setting.
The thing is that once it actually comes to war most of the stuff we IR people know has happened long in the past. Even more serious attempts at it would probably just end up as "Mission failed" if your cover is blown - whereas a far more interesting option would be if the actual consequences of such a covert op were explored. Off the top of my head, what if completing the mission successfully means when war breaks out a moderately useful ally joins you, whereas getting busted means they stay out?
@Mister Adequate: We actually used this rationale to justify our proxy wars against the Soviet Union. The Korean stalemate could have been avoided altogether if MacArthur was more careful in dealing with the Chinese. The Chinese had already made a public announcement that trespassing the Ya Lu River to the Chinese side would be considered an act of war. MacArthur said, "F- the Chinese" and lost spectacularly to the Chinese onslaught and threatened to nuke the Chinese. This was why MacArthur was replaced; we didn't want nuclear war. This was also why the Chinese started to doubt Russian intentions, because the Russians would not commit to fully supporting China's defense with its nukes. This is why China became a nuclear power.
I'm guessing that the North Koreans went nuclear for similar reasons such as distrusting the Chinese commitment even though China is the only nation that is propping up that failed state.
09/23/09
09/22/09
Gives an interesting POV in regards to Chinas business activity and how a lot of it supports terrorism / anti-western related countries along with general expansion across the globe which a lot seems to point towards the securing of natural resources and safe logistics routes mostly hidden from the hands of the western world.
Interesting book and do like how the author goes around the asia region explaining his theories supported also by facts and data in regards to Chinas expansionism.
Dragon Days - Time for "Unconventional" Tactics : By H. Joh...
09/22/09
Instead of reading that, I suggest that you take a look at Rand.org . At least their people show up for Congressional testimonies more often than any other think-tanks.
09/22/09
Personally I had picked up that book in regards to seeing his views on tactics and such and was not expecting the whole part with his pov in regards to the situation with china and the rest of the world.
Still though overall Id trust the US of A over China regardless of all the crazy bullshit we pull around the world during our span of history.
09/22/09
There are times where you can actually preempt the other side by taking a strategy that blunts/negates the advantages that the other side enjoys. The Chinese strategy at the moment seems to be to maintain the political status quo while improving its self-defence capabilities.
09/22/09
Though I have been personally looking into the private sector situation more although unfortunate I have not had as much time as I used to in regards to reading and such.
Currently am trying to catch up on the South East Asia situation. With all the reading ive been doing I swear to god my corrective eye surgery is going bust.
09/22/09
I'm wearing glasses as it is and yeah, I do tend to lose myself with reading a ton of stuff when it has my interest.
09/22/09
I personally would like to play a mech game, where the mechs were designed by mechanical engineers, and not artists.
09/22/09
Sometimes these plots that game developers come up with makes my head want to explode and this was one of them!
09/22/09
Two things i want to relate here:
1) Chinese economy: While it is universally known that its economy IS good, the numbers (gdp, etc) are official numbers (can not be trusted), and more importantly, if any of you try to make any kind of transaction in a n international stock exchange market (US, Eurozone, Israel, etc) you'll find out that you CAN NOT make almost any tranzactions with 100% chinese controlled companies FROM china, because there is no "translation" for their value (in short, you don't know WHAT they are exactly worth just so you won't be able to trade with them). So i'm not so sure about the current chinese economy being in SUCH a big boom, it's more probably hyped because they want to attract investors (smart!)
2) "After all, sometimes real-life is scarier that the "what-ifs" video game developers imagine for us". Damn right. I am Israeli, 23 years old. All my friends are about that age. What that means is that we all went through our 3 year army service, and met numerous soldiers/generals/etc. While we did not go through an actual war (luckily) we have trained for 3 years and patrolled mostly hostile territory, and i must tell you, games like call of duty 4 and bad company are for real soldiers what burnout is for F1 racers. The only shooter game that REMOTELY resembles a war/patrol in enemy territory on the PSYCHOLOGICAL level is dead space, hardest difficulty, volume to the maximum and worst armor.
09/22/09
That's interesting. I too have heard that our media (i.e. Games and movies) hasn't even come close to mimicking real life situations like being in a war.
Though, you say Dead Space on hardest difficulty level Psychologically resembles the real thing more than anything else. Did you really mean that? That's crazy. I've yet to get that game but I really wanna get it.
09/22/09
09/22/09
At least I'm pretty sure that's how he meant it.
09/23/09
would think the sheer terror of what could happen is more reflective of actual combat. A realistic sim like ArmA seems closer to what it would be like to play Paintball. Exciting for sure, but with the underlying knowledge that nobody is going home in a box.
09/22/09
They have a large history of border skirmishes and such. Despite relations having cooled post-Soviet Russia it still seems far more likely for those two to go to war in one way or another than the US going up against either one.
I just think it's an interesting concept for a video game story. How would the rest of the world react? Could NATO or Japan get pulled into the conflict? What about areas in the region that are very tense right now like North/South Korea? It would be cool switching between the two sides and the US/Europe taking a more backseat role.
It would be something different, at least.
09/22/09
It's not unforseeable that further changes could happen in the future, especially with the current government wanting the withdrawal of some of the US forces stationed in Japan. (though, admittedly, they haven't really talked about doing anything to the JSDF either.)
09/22/09
09/22/09
Then again, video games!!
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
China's been farther out there in the world, for longer than most seem to realize.
The borders between Russia and China have already been worked out a few years ago as well. The real flash points remain Taiwan and India.
09/22/09
The China vs India issue is partly caused by the US and partly caused by general stupidity throughout the Indian political and military leaderships. The Henderson-Brooks Report reviewed the whole fiasco of why the Indian army failed so miserably and so completely. Even now, that report has not been released to the public and only one historian has had access to it.
09/22/09
09/22/09
The only one that's related to a China vs Russia situation is The Bear and the Dragon.
09/22/09
09/22/09
All I know of Clancy is that he has a very good understanding of politics, especially insider knowledge. Beyond that, I don't even know if he is a retired spook or not.
09/22/09
So its better to make a lot more make believe than something too real which will have a good chance of pissing off somebody.
GRAW 2 had the mexican govt pissed off to call for seizure of the game due to the portrayal of the country in said title.
Then again somebody will always be offended by something so its a pretty lose lose situation.
09/22/09
09/23/09
09/24/09
On a side note, Korea's professional StarCraft tournaments have this Panda Curse that always results in the player who killed the Panda to lose the game.
09/24/09
Maybe no one would shoot at the pandas but there are folks who are sick enough to click on sheep and seals till they explode tho!
09/22/09
09/22/09
Kojima convulted MGS storytelling is like hearing a well told child book in comparison to what you said.
But lets not bother developers, they have a hard time writing anything interesting let alone build a real scenario that only some geniuses could do.
09/22/09
Just finding someone like that to fit in perfectly with the project would be another issue.
MGS4 what a lot of people miss is that it had some real strong and real points in regards to the boom with "private sector" / contractors, PTSD, illegal arms trade and terrorism.
Though its quite understandable that most folks would miss a lot of those important points mainly because people dont study those types of issues asides from what they might hear from the various news sources.
By far MGS4 is one of the most advanced games when it comes to actually talking about said issues and give the player a chance to consider how their own actions tie in with the setting.
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
I'm guessing that the North Koreans went nuclear for similar reasons such as distrusting the Chinese commitment even though China is the only nation that is propping up that failed state.
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09