NATO Goes Nuts: The Coming Polish-German War

NATO Goes Nuts brings the Absent Superpower Series to Europe as Old and New Europe square off.

NATO Goes Nuts: The Coming Polish-German War. As America withdraws from the world, there will be vast repercussions. In Europe, the international security guarantees put in place in 1945 will be gone. That will mean the old national rivalries that twice in 30 years sent the continent into world wars will reemerge. The scenario here covers Central Europe, where the presumed near-future emergence in Germany of the ultra-nationalist AFD as the majority party ignites fear and loathing in Poland.

The Poles understand the overarching fact of their national existence is this: if Russia and Germany are both strong at the same time, independent Poland is doomed. Russia is already relatively strong and armed with atomic weapons; it’s therefore too late for anything to be done about that.

To the west of Poland, an AFD-run Germany would no doubt soon rearm and become strong. The Poles therefore resolve to act before that happens. They strike into eastern Germany with the objective of taking Berlin and setting up a compliant and friendly regime there.

Alternatively, we can also postulate a Poland that continues its own recent drift toward the far right, culminating in a quasi-fascist government in Warsaw. That regime might act in order to forestall a nascent far-right German regime, or it might move against even a moderate-left German regime in order to forestall further Muslim immigration into Central Europe.

The game uses a battalion-level evolution of the alternating action system from America Falling to model this near-future war in Central Europe. One large-hex 34x22” map covering all of eastern Germany at five miles per hex (8 km), along with one sheet of 228 medium-size (9/16”) counters. Rules cover such things as the possibility of Czech intervention on the German side and a Turkish-Islamist uprising in Muslim sections of Berlin. Playable by two people in one sitting and also solitaire adaptable.

Product Information:
Complexity: 6 out of 10
Solitaire Suitability: 8 out of 10
Map Scale: 5 miles (8 km) per hex
Players: one or two, best with two
Playing Time: four to six hours

Projected Contents:
One 34x22" large-hex map
One Counter sheet of 9/16" counters
One Rule book
Sheets of Charts & Tables