Chessboard

A graphical chessboard program

On the top chessboard, military power is largely unipolar and likely to remain so for a while. But on the middle chessboard, economic power is already multi polar, with the US, Europe, Japan and China as the major players, and others gaining in importance.

On the top chessboard, military power is largely unipolar, and the US is likely to remain the only superpower for some time. But on the middle chessboard, economic power has already been multi polar for more than a decade, with the US, Europe, Japan, and China as the major players, and others gaining in importance.

Today, Afghan national consolidation is impeded by the collapse of the great game into a little game to dominate, again, the south and south eastern edges of the chessboard.

More than a century later, the game continues. But now, the number of players has exploded, those living on the chessboard have become players, and the intensity of the violence and the threats that it produces affect the entire globe.

The bottom chessboard is the realm of transnational relations that cross borders outside of government control. It includes actors as diverse as bankers electronically transferring sums larger than most national budgets, as well as terrorists transferring weapons or hackers disrupting Internet operations.

The bottom chessboard is the realm of cross border transactions that occur outside of government control. It includes diverse non state actors, such as bankers electronically transferring sums larger than most national budgets, and, at the other extreme, terrorists transferring weapons or hackers threatening cyber security.

The bottom chessboard includes transnational relations outside the control of governments everything from drugs to infectious diseases to climate change to terrorism. On this board, power is chaotically distributed among non state actors, and it makes no sense to call this world either uni polar or multipolar.

The film depicts a match that became a signature event in the Cold War between Russia and the United States. It also makes one wonder whether a creative genius like Fischer, deeply troubled yet supremely functional at the chessboard, would be able to exist in today s unforgiving online world.

Perhaps India and others should contend with China s assertiveness by heeding Sun Tzu s counsel Contain an adversary through the leverage of converting the neighborhood of that adversary into hostiles. Just as China has cultivated Pakistan, is India s growing embrace of Vietnam a counter move on Asia s strategic chessboard?

Parts of the invasion and occupation were certainly badly mishandled by the US, leading to a much greater loss of life than was necessary. But, taking the long view, can anyone doubt that the invasion had the effect of shaking up the pieces, not just in Iraq, but across the Islamic chessboard?