Currency Wars_ The Making of the Next Global Crisis - James Rickards [13]
War room meetings were plenary sessions, what in Pentagonese are called “brief backs,” with all the teams and observers gathered together. One representative of each cell would take the podium, describe his cell’s policy response and the rationale behind it, answer some questions from the other cells, and turn the podium over to the next cell. The lab staff had assisted each cell in the instant preparation of slides with maps, bullet points or other illustrations to throw up on the wall screens. The groupware chat functions were going full bore with twenty or more simultaneous and overlapping discussions, only some of which were responsive to others and all of which came scrolling across the screens in front of each player. It was like Twitter without the avatars and virtual wallpaper. If you felt someone was making a brilliant move or a ridiculous move, or you wanted to pose a question, you just said so. Each player could participate as much or as little as she liked while the entire stream-of-consciousness digital scroll was preserved for future evaluation by Pentagon planners.
The China brief was predictably boring given the proclivities of the team and my failure to excite much interest in gold-backed currency. We meekly accepted the scripted Russia-Japan energy deal but made some comment about accelerating China’s efforts to increase energy diversification.
Russia went next. The brief started with some happy talk about continuing to work with China on a joint venture pipeline, but then veered into the announcement about demanding gold-backed currency for future energy shipments. An official summary of the war game prepared much later referred to this move as “aggressive” and “threatening,” but the immediate response was more in keeping with the absurd style of Dr. Strangelove. The white cell asked for time to caucus once the Russian presentation was complete. From their position at the center of the room, they made a ruling that the Russian currency move was “illegal” and would have to be struck from the game record. Steve and I were incredulous, as were Steve’s Russian teammates who had endorsed the idea.
“What do you mean, ‘illegal’?” Steve demanded. “This is war! How can something be illegal!”
It was exactly what I had feared. Not only did the player selection discourage out-of-the-box thinking, but even when we could inject an unconventional move we were ruled out of bounds. I felt compelled to add my voice to Steve’s even though I was playing a different cell.
“You know,” I began from my seat in the China cell, “it’s not like there’s a Geneva Convention here. Russia’s move is not far-fetched. The United States was on a gold standard until 1971 and a lot of people in this room remember it. Russia’s being provocative but they’re always provocative. Let’s go ahead and see how this plays out.”
The white cell seemed a little stung. Steve was like a batter who gets called out on a close play at first base and I was like the first-base coach trying to protect his player from being ejected. The digital chat room had erupted with the equivalent of “Kill the ump!” The white cell asked for another caucus to consider their ruling. Finally the white cell leader took the microphone. At this point I was half expecting to hear, “Upon further review . . . ,” but in suitably bland bureaucratic language he confirmed Russia’s move would be allowed. The white cell clarified that the move was not “illegal” but “ill-advised.” I knew this was a polite way of saying Russia had done something stupid, but that was fine with me. Gold currency was now in the game; we would see how this evolved over the next two days.
The rest of the moves made were announced in fine multilateral fashion. The United States made the obligatory announcement in support of free trade and the need to think about green energy alternatives. The Pacific Rim announced that Japan would provide aid to any Asian nations suffering short-term hardships in energy costs and also pledged to seek alternative sources of energy. The gray