Geopolitics is More Like Poker than Chess

Geopolitics is sometimes compared to Chess. However, this is not a good comparison because Chess involves only two players, everything is visible to both sides, and there's no bluffing. None of this is true for geopolitics.

To make a reasonable game comparison for geopolitics, we must find a game that involves a lot of unknowns, and an arbitrary number of players must be able to play the game. Poker comes to mind. But this too is lacking essential features of geopolitics. For one, the players are making themselves known before the game commences, and the type of cards that are used in the game are also known and understood. No new cards are invented along the way.

However, as a game comparison, I would still call it Poker. It's certainly a better comparison than Chess.

Mark Esper with Jens Stoltenberg

By U.S. Secretary of Defense - 200212-D-AP390-6107, CC BY 2.0, Link