Recent Work
The Pentagon's New Map Game
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
NEWPORT, RI | Alidade Inc. hired four talented graphic facilitators from Alphachimp Studio create dozens of visual posters to document a fascinating war game inspired by the work of Thomas P.M. Barnett. The two-day seminar attended by senior military leaders, academics, contractors, negotiators, policy-makers, clergy and concerned citizens.
"The guys and gals that Alidade put together for Control and support and Alphachimp were routinely superb. Everyone was just so cool and confident, I and my partners felt like we were in great hands throughout, and so felt perfectly able to get out of the event what we wanted to achieve while delivering what the circumstances needed."We will take the amazing images created during the game and create a powerful graphic novel explaining both Barnett's concepts and how they played out in this game.~Thomas P.M. Barnett, The New Rule Set Project LLC
See The New Map Game site, designed by Alphachimp. Read Barnett's reactions to the game at his prolific blog.
left: Graphic facilitators Peter Durand and Drew Dernavich
center: David Jarvis, Betty Tully Cares, Jeff Cares and Alex the Intern of Alidade Inc.
right: Kelvy Bird, Christopher Fuller and Leah Silverman
Participants were divided into four teams, each representing a country from each of the four geo-political segments described in The Pentagon's New Map: the Old Core, New Core, Seam States, and Gap.
New Core —representing emerging economic markets and centers of geo-political power (e.g. China, India, Russia)
Seam States—countries where elements from the Gap look to infiltrate the Core (e.g. Mexico, Brazil, Greece, Pakistan)
Gap—those states that are disconnected from the international system, characterized by repressive regimes, chronic poverty, disease and conflict (e.g. Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan)
Think of each team as a collection of the most powerful people from across their respective countries. All participants were provided a Game Book (prior to the game) describing their country's background, its relations with the other teams, and what types of actions are available to them.
above: Brigadier General Hassan assesses
Team China's decision-making process.
In this version of the game, four teams competed as four modern nation-states: Iran, China, Brazil and the US.
Each team responded to dozens of major and minor world events ranging from the discovery of a miracle drug in Brazil's Amazon to a nuclear explosion in North Korea during the 2006 Olympic Games in Beijing.
A great article in the London Telegraph captures the revelations and the experience of the game.
"So was the US losing?" asked Mr Barnett, who believes in conciliating and not confronting China.
"From the point of view of the American people the presidents [in the game] would be pretty popular. Americans are not getting killed in a war and are not 'meddling'.
"No major wars - this is the definition of a happy ending. America was losing to win."
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