Corporate Strategy When Alignment Becomes a Choice
Friday 13 November 2026 · University of St.Gallen, Switzerland
A one-day strategy simulation for the corporate diplomat. Teams of business leaders, officials and academics negotiate a fictional near-future Gulf, where every choice of partner signals alignment.
“Pax Ludens is a conversation with the future, where the future talks back.”
Prashanth Shanmugan, President, Australian Council on Foreign Relations
Hosted by the Australian Council on Foreign Relations and the University of St.Gallen’s Competence Centre for Mastering the Unknown.
A laboratory for the corporate diplomat
Pax Ludens (Latin for “peace at play”) is more than a simulation. It is a hands-on laboratory for strategy, diplomacy and leadership, dedicated to training the corporate diplomat.
Business and geopolitics can no longer be managed separately. Decisions on investment, market access, technology and supply chains are increasingly bound up with government relationships, and a choice that looks purely commercial can carry political meaning.
The power of simulation
Discussion tests logic; play tests behaviour, and behaviour is what breaks strategies.
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In a board meeting, a plan only has to convince the people who wrote it. In a simulation, it has to survive people trying to beat it. Better to fail ten times in a room than once in the market.
Simulation gaming is a powerful tool for building knowledge, fostering empathy and facilitating dialogue on critical global issues. At its core, Pax Ludens is about people. Stepping into others’ shoes builds the empathy and understanding that negotiation and conflict resolution depend on.
Pax Ludens is an initiative of the Australian Council on Foreign Relations.
Doomsday: Friday 13 November 2026
In 1960, a group of academics published a paper in the journal Science with a striking title: “Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026”. Friday 13 November 2026 is the date of this edition of Pax Ludens.
Read the story
They fitted a single formula to two thousand years of population data, with an average error of about 7 percent, and calculated that if humanity carried on as it always had, the world’s population would become infinite on that date.
They even showed how persuasive the trend was. With the same formula, Charlemagne could have dated doomsday to within 300 years, Napoleon to within 30, and the authors themselves to within 10. The more evidence they had, the more certain the prediction became.
Doomsday did not arrive. World population growth peaked in the 1960s, shortly after the paper appeared. Families have shrunk to just over two children per woman on average, and the United Nations now expects the world’s population, about 8.2 billion today, to peak at around 10.3 billion in the 2080s. The formula fitted the past almost perfectly. It failed because people changed their behaviour.
The authors themselves pointed to why. Because human beings communicate, they argued, they can form coalitions, turning a competitive, near zero-sum game among many players into what amounts to a single team playing against nature.
von Foerster, H., Mora, P. M. and Amiot, L. W. (1960). Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026. Science, 132(3436), 1291–1295. United Nations (2024), World Population Prospects 2024.
That is the question at the heart of Pax Ludens: what happens when we extrapolate the past into the future, and what role does human agency play in changing the trajectory?
Alignment is no longer a given
This edition turns to the Gulf, where energy, capital, logistics and advanced technology increasingly meet, and where few trend lines from the past can be relied upon. For governments and companies alike, alignment is no longer a given. It is a choice, and every choice has a price.
How the game works
The Australian Council on Foreign Relations and the University of St.Gallen’s Competence Centre for Mastering the Unknown will host Pax Ludens: The Gulf Reorders – Corporate Strategy When Alignment Becomes a Choice on Friday 13 November 2026 at the University of St.Gallen.
Over one day, participants join teams representing states, companies and institutions, each with its own interests, objectives and red lines. The simulation is set in a fictional near-future Gulf, built around a major cross-regional investment initiative in which Gulf capital and energy, European industrial capabilities, American technology and Asian supply chains all appear to fit together. The scenario does not re-enact current events; it draws on the forces reshaping the region today.
Round by round, teams negotiate, form alliances and make their moves, and each decision shapes the situation every other team faces. There is no script: how events unfold is of the participants’ own making. A team of facilitators runs the simulation, coordinated from a central backroom.
- Capital and investmentHow sovereign capital, corporate investment and partnership decisions shape access to markets and opportunities, and the conditions that may come attached.
- Technology and economic securityHow technology controls, investment screening and economic-security policies turn the choice of suppliers and partners into a signal of political alignment.
- Energy, logistics and connectivityHow disruptions to energy, shipping and digital infrastructure, and the corridors built to bypass them, ripple through corporate strategies.
- Strategic autonomy and alignmentHow states and companies resist being forced into a single bloc, and what it costs to choose, or to avoid choosing.
People
Keynote
Facilitators
An international team from academia, industry and diplomacy.
- Prof. Dr. Patrik AspersDean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences; Head, Competence Centre for Mastering the Unknown, University of St.Gallen
- Prof. Dr. Riccardo BoccoEmeritus Professor of Political Sociology, Geneva Graduate Institute
- Dr. Ulrich MansDirector of Geopolitics & Governmental Affairs, QuantWare; Advisory Board, Australian Council on Foreign Relations
- Dr. Marianne SchörlingProduct & Anticipation Experience Lead, Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator
- Prashanth ShanmuganPresident, Australian Council on Foreign Relations; Adjunct Lecturer, University of St.Gallen
- Gideon ShimshonEducational strategist and EdTech entrepreneur, Global Health Education Group
Secretariat
Pax Ludens, Australian Council on Foreign Relations
Simon KaiserLeonard HohnschildSarah MohrKajsa Wenger
A curated cohort
Pax Ludens brings together a curated cohort of high-calibre individuals from across academia, government and industry. Participation is by invitation and application, designed to foster diversity of thought, sector and expertise. Each participant contributes unique experience and networks, helping to create a stimulating environment for meaningful dialogue, practical learning and long-term connection.