The Megagame Archive
Washington Conference
Designer(s): Dave Boundy Date:24 Feb 2001 Number of participants:{numbers}
Venue: Eardley School, Streatham Quote of the Game: {Quote of The Game}
Game Description
Arms control and negotiation in the 1920s.
Late in 1921, the great powers met in Washington to negotiate limitations on their fleets. This ended the brief naval arms race after WW1 but the nature of the treaties achieved sowed the seeds of WW2 in the Pacific. To achieve naval limitations called for many other aspects to be negotiated - particularly the status of China and the nature, position and number of fleet bases in the Pacific.

The game was one of pure diplomacy and negotiation. Player teams represented USA, UK, Japan, France, Italy, Netherlands, China and the press. Based around two main committees - covering political and a military - the teams had, by afternoon, lurched towards agreement inside their committees. Unfortunately military and political teams had a tendency to isolation, so only a limited treaty on ship building had been achieved by the end of the game.

It was fascinating to see the teams grappling with the same issues that caused problems for their real-life counterparts and have caused problems for arms limitation talks ever since - matters, for example, of trust and inspection.

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