Case Centre resources

Off the coast of Yemen, in the Red Sea, an enormous oil tanker sat rusting in 2022. The Floating Storage and Offloading Unit (FSO) Safer contained 1.1 million barrels of oil. However, due to the ongoing Yemen civil war between Ansar Allah (also known as the Houthis) and the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government of Yemen, the tanker had not been maintained since 2015. With the rotting hull deteriorating every day, an oil spill from the Safer was widely considered both inevitable and imminent unless prompt action is taken. The consequences of such a spill would be dire: devastating the ecology of the Red Sea region, disrupting global trade by potentially blocking the Suez Canal for months, and greatly exacerbating the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Although the disaster seemed relatively easy to prevent from a technical perspective, political barriers had restricted progress for years and talks between Ansar Allah and the UN broke down completely in 2019. This multi-issue, multi-party negotiation simulation for groups of 6-12 players picks up the story in early 2022 when a change of UN leadership, as well as other developments in the region, had opened the door for new negotiations.

As the senior most civil servant in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Mountain State, Jay Adan was required to approve any new recruits hired in the interior ministry. When he received a list of candidates recommended for vacant posts in the Mountain State Emergency Services, one of his ministry’s departments, he suspected that the recruitment had not been meritocratic. His personal investigation suggested that the candidates chosen were unqualified, and that more candidates were being recruited than the number of actual vacancies. Patronage was a rampant issue in the region, and political leaders frequently used recruitment cycles to garner support among voters before elections. Adan believed it was likely that the minister of internal affairs was interfering with the recruitment to recommend individuals from his key constituencies in time for elections. Adan considered it unethical to approve a corrupt process, but explicitly rejecting the list could cost him his career and jeopardise the important projects he was working on. Running out of time and options, Adan needed to decide what to do.

On 14 April 2023, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea announced that it had tested its ‘most powerful’ missile to date. A breakthrough in its weapons technology, the new solid-fuel ballistic missile was designed for rapid deployment – leaving little time to be intercepted by an adversary. Experts believed it had long-range or even intercontinental capabilities. With the launch, North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jung Un sent a warning: ‘We will strike with deadly force and respond aggressively until the enemy gives up its idle strategy and foolish behaviour and so that it will suffer in endless fear.’ Just weeks earlier, two of North Korea’s stated enemies, the United States and Republic of Korea , conducted the largest joint military exercises in South Korea in five years. The two militaries maintained that the drills were routine and defensive, a response to North Korean ‘aggression’. But North Korea’s state media viewed them as moves of ‘frantic war preparation’. Tensions were ratcheting up in an already volatile region.

This dynamic crisis simulation picks up when communication between North and South Korea breaks down following North Korea’s missile tests. Groups of six to nine participants are allocated roles in the governments of North Korea, Republic of Korea, China, USA, Japan, and Russia to solve an escalating international crisis consisting of military, health, and economic emergencies. Over the course of five phases, participants must take actions according to their roles and their allocated country’s interests.