Twilight Struggle: South Asian Monsoon Interview: Jason Matthews

 

Twilight Struggle: South Asian Monsoon is a two-player, stand-alone, card-driven game that builds on the award-winning Twilight Struggle. While the United States and Soviet Union were locked in the Cold War, the South Asian region took on a new importance. As newly-independent countries formed out of the remains of crumbling European empires, each Superpower scrambled to establish influence with these fledgling nations. Some South Asian countries played the US and USSR against one another, seeking to maximize investment, aid, and military assistance in exchange for bases, political favors, and expressions of support. Some remained “non-aligned” and refused to join either bloc formally—which did not stop them from taking generous aid packages—and others sought the creation of a third bloc, aligned with China.

The rules and images shown here are not final.

You can find it in P500

-Why South Asia?

With both Twilight Struggle: Red Sea and now, TS: South Asian Monsoon, we are really addressing omissions from the actual history of the Cold War. Ananda and I developed a cute gimmick of "the China Card" for the original Twilight Struggle. It has some simulative legitimacy in terms of portraying China as a "swing" power in the Cold War. The China Card is essentially a foreign policy pun -- but it is not the actual history of China's participation in the Cold War which was dramatic, significant, and had an enormous impact on US and Soviet strategy. In the base game, since China is abstracted out, Twilight Struggle cannot accurately reflect the 50 year dance between India, China and Pakistan and their quest for regional primacy. However, this is a hugely important dynamic that defines a great deal of what happens at pivotal moments of the Cold War.

So Red Sea addressed the problem that the base game simply ignored the crisis in the Horn of Africa toward the end of the Cold War. South Asian Monsoon seeks to set the record straight about China's importance in the Cold War, and more accurately reflect the dangerous and frequently violent regional jostling between India, Pakistan and China.

 

-Tell us about the new mechanics

The Cold War in South Asia is a bit different than the Cold War everywhere else. South Asia is quite far from the natural avenues of power projection. The Soviets can't put tanks at your border, and it is a very long sail from Hawaii to Colombo. Which means, these countries had more "wiggle room" to choose their own path forward during the Cold War. For Nehru of India, that "middle path" rather quickly became the non-aligned movement. So newly independent countries and the non-aligned movement both play a major role in the game mechanics of this design. Essentially, you must constantly engage with non-aligned countries or watch your influence atrophy. Similarly, as tensions between the superpowers heighten, Non-aligned countries become more insistent on their independence. Further the Non-aligned mechanics address a little play balance issue -- now if you get a lot of "neutral" cards you no longer get a free lunch -- using the operations value without consequence. Now, if you get a neutral event and you don't activate the event, your opponent gets to add a country to the non-aligned movement (spoiler alert, your opponent will be choosing one of your allies).

The Newly Independent Country box is a little like the Strategic Sea Lanes in that it doesn't represent a country per se. But a policy and diplomatic struggle in this case. It also controls the pacing of the entry of new countries into the game.

Finally, the China chart represents player's efforts to develop a relationship with the factions operating within the Chinese Communist Party, with an eye to making sure that your power is well positioned for whomever succeeds Mao.

-Can you recommend podcasts, books, etc. to get into the setting?

I enjoyed "Cold War on the Periphery" which discusses the evolution of the US relationship with India and Pakistan. There is another good book called Cold War in the High Himalaya, worth a look. I really recommend the documentary Shadow Circus, the CIA in Tibet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k14ttZafgt0 -- which discusses US covert operations in Tibet, which were of course highly secret until fairly recently.

 

-What other future settings will we find with this new format?

Jason has another design that we will work on after this, but we may have to wait a bit longer for GMT to make the announcement. As long as there is interest, there are many many locations where we can hold a magnifying glass on the Cold War and provide a different challenge to players. If Twilight Struggle Red Sea was a on on-ramp for new players to learn the Twilight Struggle system, Twilight Struggle South Asian Monsoon will provide a more complex, even more agonizing set of decisions to Twilight Struggle players looking for new challenges.