Originally Posted by
Rex Brynen
I think what could be interesting would be to randomize some of the baseline social relationships, so that a player/student would be encouraged to ask the right questions, rather than blindly copy historical approaches that were themselves highly contextually dependent.
Take, for example, the relationship between unemployment levels and support for insurgency. In some conflicts the relationship is positive (unemployment creates grievances and makes it easier for insurgents to hire guns), in some cases there is no relationship at all, and in a few cases the relationship is actually negative (employment generates resources which are funnelled to the insurgents). Similarly, tribes and tribal leaders are very important in some places--and not in others.
A truly effective COIN game would encourage the participant to map the human terrain and be wary of cookie-cutter approaches. However, that is a bit of a departure for game designers--who have tended to work with unchanging physics models in the game engine. Still, it could be quite easily done.
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