Tactical Jenga vs. The Strategic Stopwatch

**Randy Brown** · 04-14-2008

One caveat before I beg your collective indulgence for taking up too much headspace and timing.

Yes, I am aware that the purpose of this discussion is focused on the topic of "transition," not games and competitions of mental, physical, and architectural skill. Wrestling with the rhetorical concepts presented in the PowerPoint fragment first used to get the conversational-Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-ball rolling, as well as subsequent comments and insights offered by other posters, I decided to engage in a little research and play regarding Jenga, and how it might be modified to more accurately reflect the conflicting realities (and the realities of conflict) at work in "transition."

My efforts were immediately rewarded with some Fun Jenga Facts Worthy of Cliff Claven himself, including:

"Jenga" is the imperative verb in Swahili "to build."
There are authorized variants of Jenga, including: those involving colored blocks and randomization through dice ("Throw'n Go Jenga"); "Truth or Dare Jenga (don't ask, don't tell?); and even an "Xtreme" version that does not use uniform shapes or angles.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenga for more facts on the game.

Inspired by this initial success, I sought to conceptualize a Jenga variant that would incorporate factors including, but not limited to:

A fixed timeline for success or failure.
Actions by multiple actors, each self-interestedly pursuring different objectives or conditions for victory.
Both "offensive" and "defensive" tactics.
Opportunities for negotiation and alliance.

Below, please find an attempt to model "transition" using two sets of Jenga blocks. I propose to call the result "Jenga Jihad," because I have a sportscaster's penchant for alliteration, and because I like the juxtaposition of "To Build" and "To Struggle." (Cultural nano-brief follows: "Jihad" does not equal "holy war.")

I offer all this as a serious effort to play with a serious concept, and look forward to your comments. I'd also welcome any reactions driven by actual playtesting, as my family's Jenga set is currently deployed as a field-expedient set of building blocks, and may even be the fairy princess' last line of defense.

Enjoy!

Jenga Jihad

Players: Two or more.

Supplies Required:

Two sets of Jenga(tm) blocks, each consisting of 54 unpainted wooden blocks.
Stopwatch, clock, kitchen timer or equivalent device.

Game Layout:

Two Jenga towers are placed at a distance approximately two Jenga-block-lengths from each other. One tower is designated as the “Troop Levels” tower; the other is designated as the “Host Nation Government” tower.

Player No. 1 (“The Jenga-ist”) Objectives:

Dismantle your “Troop Levels” tower to achieve the smallest number of blocks possible (achieving “minimal/optimal footprint”), without allowing the structure to collapse. Simultaneously, build up your “Host Nation Government” tower as high as possible (without sacrificing stability!), using the blocks removed from the first.

Other Players’ (“The Jihadists”) Objectives:

Prevent Player No. 1 from achieving his/her objectives by removing one block from either the “Troop Levels” or “Host Nation Government” towers on each turn. Standard Jenga rules regarding block removal, “bumping,” ends of turns, etc., apply. (Again, see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenga) Using the blocks you remove each turn, start and continue to build a small “Faction” tower anywhere within two Jenga-block-lengths of the “Troop Levels” and/or “Host Nation Government” towers.

Game Play:

Play ends either at the end of 12 minutes, timed by stopwatch or other device, or when the “Troop Levels” or “”Host Nation Government” tower collapses. (Editor’s note: 5 to 6 minutes is average for standard Jenga; the 12-minute duration here is only a suggestion.)
Player No. 1 goes first, removing first a block from the “Troop Levels” tower and replacing it onto the “Host Nation Government” tower. On subsequent turns, Player No. 1 may remove a block either from the “Troop Levels” tower, or from any “Faction” tower; he/she may also add to any “Faction” tower.
Play either alternates between two players, or rotates clockwise.
Unlike standard Jenga, blocks may be removed from the topmost level of any tower.
The topmost level on any tower must be complete (3 blocks, running perpendicular to the next-lower level) before a player may add further blocks to build upward. However, in order to stabilize a tower, players may also replace blocks on or lower than the topmost level. (In other words, blocks must not always be added to the top of a tower.)
On each turn, players may remove one block from any of the following: The “Troop Levels” tower, the “Host Nation Government” tower, or any other player’s tower.
Players may seek to influence others through negotiation, including the establishment of alliances.

Optional Rules:

Player No. 1 may NEVER remove blocks from the “Host Nation Government” tower (to do so would be to invite Civil War).

OR

Player No. 1 may remove blocks even from the “Host Nation Government,” particularly if he/she is attempting to build up one or more “Faction” towers.

Victory Conditions:

Player No. 1 wins if both the “Troop Levels” and “Host Nation Government” towers remain standing at the end of play, and if the “Host Nation Government” tower is the tallest as compared to any remaining “Faction” towers. Any player openly allied with the “Host Nation Government” can also be considered to share in this victory.
Any other player wins if his/her “Faction” tower remains standing after the collapse of either the “Troops Levels” or “Host Nation Government” towers.
In the event that more than one “Faction” tower remains standing after the collapse of either the “Troops Levels” or “Host Nation Government” towers, the player with the tallest “Faction” tower (Editor’s note: This is not necessarily the tower comprising the most blocks) is the winner.

**Spud** · 04-15-2008

Damn ... I actually get that. Time to find some Jenga blocks and have a crack

**SWJED** · 04-15-2008

You did a real nice job at JUW 08 - thanks much. Welcome to the Council.

**Uboat509** · 04-15-2008

I like Jenga metaphor. As soon as I saw the title of the thread I formed a picture in my head before I even saw the slide. The way I interpreted it was perhaps a bit more abstract than others did. The Jenga tower represents the overall problem of transition and we must play the game (I don't picture a direct correlation between the removal of the blocks and specific things like troop levels and such, rather I saw it as task we must accomplish representing everything we must accomplish in Iraq). Those have played Jenga know that the early moves are relatively easy but the later moves get progressively harder and require more time to accomplish as the tower gets more unstable. The problem then becomes that we are now on a stopwatch, imposed by political expediency and John Q Public's ADHD among other factors. (I also saw the stopwatch as representing dwindling resources as well as time, by the way.) We no longer have as much time as we would like to make our moves. Unlike the normal game however, the goal is not to win by having your opponent crash the tower but have the tower still standing when time runs out (Ken's acceptable outcome vs "victory"). It is an imperfect metaphor but that is the way I pictured it.

SFC W

**slapout9** · 04-15-2008

Well lets see. Lets change the rules some. What if the Jenga tower represented the insurgency network and you have to figure out how to collapse it within a certain time frame? You would try to find a COG that would collapse the whole thing at once.... but insurgencies are more complicated than that. So the question is how could you collapse the tower in the fewest steps possible, within the alloted time and establish a secure environment. Once that is done you could do the nation building thing.