I think the theory is directionally correct, but there are a few mistakes:
Fewer wars between distal countries is only because they cannot project their power that far, and if they try a nearby country would opportunistically subsume them. Closer geographic distance also happens to make the countries similar in other ways, but those other ways have ~no explanatory power for the war.
Alliances form to make going to war positive EV, not the other way around. This is why the alliance that instigates a war is usually positive EV—because that alliance was put together specifically for that war.
I would recommend watching some games between the top players in Risk, a simplified simulation of war. They spell out what their plans are, and why. Obviously a game is not perfectly applicable to the real world, but Risk is the equivalent to grand strategy as Go is to positional strategy and Chess battlefield strategy.
I think a big issue with Risk as an analogue to grand strategy is that it presumes that war is correct and zero-sum (rather than negative sum in reality). This approximation is okay for battlefield strategy but vastly off for grand strategy.
Might as well say everyone in the real world is in a zero-sum competition over control of Tegmark IV. But for the most part, wars take place on much smaller battlefields. E.g. trading spots in Asia to get territory cards, fighting a 2v1 to get another continent. Both of which are positive sum, as they increase the probability that one of the players involved will be the ultimate victor.
I think the theory is directionally correct, but there are a few mistakes:
Fewer wars between distal countries is only because they cannot project their power that far, and if they try a nearby country would opportunistically subsume them. Closer geographic distance also happens to make the countries similar in other ways, but those other ways have ~no explanatory power for the war.
Alliances form to make going to war positive EV, not the other way around. This is why the alliance that instigates a war is usually positive EV—because that alliance was put together specifically for that war.
I would recommend watching some games between the top players in Risk, a simplified simulation of war. They spell out what their plans are, and why. Obviously a game is not perfectly applicable to the real world, but Risk is the equivalent to grand strategy as Go is to positional strategy and Chess battlefield strategy.
I think a big issue with Risk as an analogue to grand strategy is that it presumes that war is correct and zero-sum (rather than negative sum in reality). This approximation is okay for battlefield strategy but vastly off for grand strategy.
Your comment is completely incorrect.
War is not zero sum in Risk. There are six players so any large conflict between two of them is usually negative sum.
War [edit: by occurrences, not weighted by scale] is usually positive sum in reality and Risk, e.g. evolution, proxy wars.
sorry, all competitive board games are zero-sum by default, there are exceptions but it’s rare.
(I don’t know under what ontology/definition wars are positive sum in reality but I’m also not that interested in debating this).
Might as well say everyone in the real world is in a zero-sum competition over control of Tegmark IV. But for the most part, wars take place on much smaller battlefields. E.g. trading spots in Asia to get territory cards, fighting a 2v1 to get another continent. Both of which are positive sum, as they increase the probability that one of the players involved will be the ultimate victor.