The national nuclear deterrent is approaching retirement. A rival nuclear power is modernising. Cabinet must decide whether to fund its replacement.
Your vote. Replace it?
Fictional scenario. Costs, probabilities and outcomes are stylised simulation assumptions.
CABINET DECISION
10 YEARS LATER
The deterrent is operational. Whatever you voted, the £200bn has been committed. Now three crises test what actually drives military policy.
CABINET FILE · STARTING POSITION
BEFORE THE CRISIS BEGINS...
The £200bn deterrent is operational. This is the strategic position you inherit.
NUCLEAR RISK
45/100
Exposure to escalation, miscalculation and nuclear confrontation.
Lower is safer.
FREEDOM OF ACTION
70/100
How much freedom government has to act unilaterally, without constraints from rivals, agreements or inherited commitments.
Higher = fewer constraints. Not necessarily better.
FISCAL ROOM
35/100
Budget flexibility after the £200bn commitment and associated defence obligations.
Higher means more capacity for alternative spending.
NOT A HIGH-SCORE GAME. Making yourself safer may increase nuclear risk. Cooperation may reduce risk while constraining freedom of action. Cancelling expenditure may create fiscal room — but inherited structures can eat into the saving.
Your decisions will change this file. You will not see the final numbers until the investigation is over.
1 · THE BLUFF
02:13 — NUCLEAR ALERT
A rival nuclear state suddenly moves forces to high readiness. Intelligence cannot tell whether this is a bluff, defensive preparation, or preparation to attack.
What do you do?
RAISE READINESSStrengthen deterrent credibility. They will see you doing it.
WAIT FOR EVIDENCEAvoid reacting to uncertain intelligence. But the clock keeps moving.
OPEN EMERGENCY CONTACTAsk what they are doing. Their answer may be true — or strategic.
THE BLUFF · CONSEQUENCE
YOUR OUTCOME · REALISM
Another student may have reached a completely different outcome. But they could not escape the same political-economic problem.
SCHOOL UNLOCKED
6 POSSIBLE OUTCOMES. 1 UNDERLYING PROBLEM: YOU CANNOT CONTROL THEIR RESPONSE TO YOUR SEARCH FOR SECURITY.
REALISM
No one is coming to save you.
THE STATE
A security-seeking actor in an anarchic international system. No higher authority guarantees survival, so self-help becomes central.
WHAT DRIVES SPENDING?
External threats, relative power and credible deterrence. Capability matters because security depends partly on what other states can do.
WHAT YOUR GAME EXPOSED
You could not know rival intentions. Attempts to protect yourself altered their strategic calculation — and could make both sides less secure.
ANARCHY → INSECURITY → RELATIVE POWER → DETERRENCE → MILITARY SPENDING
THE LIMIT: Realism makes insecurity visible. But if self-help creates danger, can institutions change the incentives producing it?
2 · THE CHEAT
THE DEAL IS WORKING. UNTIL...
Both states sign a nuclear-restraint agreement with inspections, data sharing and limits. Six months later satellites identify an undeclared facility. Rival explanation: civilian research. Intelligence suspicion: 55%.
What do you do?
TRUST THEMPreserve cooperation. Accept the risk that restraint is being exploited.
DEMAND INSPECTIONReduce uncertainty — but rules may have to apply equally to you.
WALK AWAYEnd the risk of being cheated under the treaty. Also end the treaty.
THE CHEAT · CONSEQUENCE
YOUR OUTCOME · LIBERALISM
Different routes produced different results. Every route forced you to confront the problem of making cooperation credible.
SCHOOL UNLOCKED
6 POSSIBLE OUTCOMES. 1 UNDERLYING PROBLEM: CREDIBLE COOPERATION REQUIRES RULES THAT CONSTRAIN YOU TOO.
LIBERALISM
Anarchy doesn't make cooperation impossible.
THE STATE
States pursue interests, but institutions, rules, information and interdependence can alter behaviour and strategic incentives.
WHAT DRIVES SPENDING?
Military choices depend partly on whether cooperation can be made credible. Verification reduces uncertainty; reciprocity supports compliance; institutions alter the payoff from cheating.
WHAT YOUR GAME EXPOSED
Trust alone was risky. But destroying the rules also destroyed information and restraint. Cooperation required constraints on both sides.
THE LIMIT: Liberalism shows how today's incentives can change. But where did today's military institutions, interests and commitments come from?
3 · THE £200BN TRAP
THE THREAT FALLS 70%. THE INTERESTS DON'T.
A decade later relations improve dramatically. Treasury looks at the next replacement cycle: “Excellent. Let's save the £200bn.”
THEN THE PHONE STARTS RINGING. Prime contractors warn about investment. Unions warn about specialist jobs. Regions warn about economic shock. Defence officials warn that industrial capacity, once dismantled, may not return.
The security threat has fallen. Do you still spend another £200bn?
CANCEL NOWDo not replace the system. Accept the economic disruption that follows.
PHASE IT OUTEnd the programme gradually while firms, workers and regions adjust.
KEEP ITSpend the £200bn and preserve the capability, jobs and industrial base.
THE £200BN TRAP · CONSEQUENCE
YOUR OUTCOME · HISTORICAL STRUCTURALISM
Different policy choices. The same discovery: today's government inherited yesterday's political economy.
SCHOOL UNLOCKED
6 POSSIBLE OUTCOMES. 1 UNDERLYING PROBLEM: MILITARY SPENDING CREATES FIRMS, JOBS AND REGIONS THAT BECOME MATERIALLY DEPENDENT ON ITS CONTINUATION.
HISTORICAL STRUCTURALISM
Follow the money. Then follow the power.
THE STATE
The state is not a neutral chooser responding only to today's threat. Its choices are shaped by historically developed relations between capital, industry, labour and state power.
WHAT DRIVES SPENDING?
Military expenditure can reproduce material interests as well as provide security: contracts sustain firms and profits, production sustains jobs and regions, and the state becomes dependent on industrial capacity. In Marxist political economy, this links military spending to capital accumulation: public expenditure can sustain profitable production while creating interests with a material stake in its continuation.
WHAT YOUR GAME EXPOSED
The external threat fell 70%, but the interests organised around expenditure remained. If spending simply follows threat, why didn't the pressure to spend fall with the threat? Groups dependent on the system had material reasons — and unequal power — to defend it.
MILITARY SPENDING → FIRMS, JOBS & CAPACITY → MATERIAL DEPENDENCE → POLITICAL POWER → PRESSURE FOR CONTINUED SPENDING
THE DIFFERENCE: Realism looks at the rival. Liberalism looks at the rules between states. Historical Structuralism asks how capital, labour, industry and state power became organised around military expenditure — and whose interests that structure reproduces.
MACHINERY · JUDGEMENT
£200BN. FINAL ANSWER.
You've faced nuclear uncertainty. You've tried cooperation. You've discovered what happens when yesterday's decisions become today's structures.
NOW YOU HAVE TO DECIDE.
The deterrent reaches its next replacement decision. What do you recommend?
BUILD / REPLACEMaintain the deterrent despite its costs and risks.
DELAYPreserve options while seeking a different security settlement.
CANCELAccept transition and strategic consequences rather than recommit £200bn.
MACHINERY · YOUR JUDGEMENT
YOUR ANSWER IS IN.
But your vote is only the decision. Now find out what your route actually did.
CABINET FILE · FINAL OUTCOME
WHAT DID YOUR DECISIONS DO?
SIMULATED STRATEGIC INDICATORS — NOT EMPIRICAL ESTIMATES. The overall scores summarise accumulated direction of travel. Individual choices below show direction, not fake numerical precision.
NUCLEAR RISK
FREEDOM OF ACTION
FISCAL ROOM
WHAT MOVED RISK?
WHAT MOVED FREEDOM?
WHAT MOVED FISCAL ROOM?
MACHINERY · VERDICT
HERE'S THE PROBLEM.
No single mechanism produced your result.
THE RIVAL
Some consequences came from threat, uncertainty and the other state's response.
THE RULES BETWEEN YOU
Some came from verification, reciprocity and the constraints required for cooperation.
THE STRUCTURES YOU INHERITED
Some persisted because institutions and material interests outlived the conditions that created them.
Which explanation did most of the work?
REALISMPower, insecurity and deterrence.
LIBERALISMInstitutions, information and reciprocity.
HISTORICAL STRUCTURALISMHistorically produced structures and material interests.
VERDICT · STRESS TEST
A strong explanation must survive the evidence that is most awkward for it.
VERDICT
SAME WEAPON. THREE PLACES TO FIND THE CAUSE.
REALISM · OUTSIDE
Explains why insecurity, relative power and deterrence can generate demand for military capability.
LIBERALISM · BETWEEN
Explains how verification, reciprocity and institutions can alter the incentives that produce military competition.
HISTORICAL STRUCTURALISM · BEHIND + INSIDE
Explains how past accumulation and military expenditure create firms, employment, regional dependence and state–industry relations that can reproduce spending after the original security conditions change.
NO SINGLE BUTTON WON. THE QUESTION IS WHICH CAUSAL STORY EXPLAINS MOST — AND WHICH EVIDENCE IT CANNOT EXPLAIN AWAY.
YOUR VERDICT: Realism is strongest on strategic constraint. Liberalism is strongest on changing incentives between states. Historical Structuralism is strongest on material interests, state–industry power and the reproduction of spending. They need not be equally persuasive in this case — your job is to decide which explanation survives the hardest test.