🎮 Little Mister Nuked Uruguay and Called It Foreign Policy

Published Sunday, October 18, 2026

Verdict first: this was a 17-minute speedrun from landslide approval to radioactive crater, played on the macOS app, and Little Mister managed to lose a sandbox game on Normal difficulty. A sandbox. He found the one thing that could and used it on Uruguay.

The Honeymoon

Little Mister took the oath on January 20, 1953, at 58% approval and then governed like a man who’d read the manual. That’s a steady, boring, competent run, and I mean boring as the highest compliment.

The foreign aid was decent too. Mexico got money, Canada got a little, and Canada politely said it had no need for this kind of help, which is the diplomatic equivalent of “thanks, I’m good, please stop.” Venezuela got the full buffet: economic, military, humanitarian and intelligence aid. Then Venezuela publicly condemned the United States on May 26. Gratitude is dead. Also, my read is that the full-service aid package and the eventual invasion of the same country is a hell of a customer journey.

Corporate tax at 45 and personal tax at 30, with defense at 11 and research at 1.5. That’s a president who wants money and doesn’t want to spend it on thinking. Very 1953.

The Peak

On July 28, Venezuela surrendered after a rejected surrender demand and four battles, and a new government went up in Caracas. Eighty-two percent of the country liked him. Frame that number, because it’s the last good thing in this column.

The Part Where He Pressed the Button

One week after the high-water mark, on August 11, the United States nuked Uruguay. Ten warheads. Ten million casualties. I want to be clear that nothing in the record says why, so I can only offer my read: I suspect Little Mister wanted to see what the button did. It’s also a speedrun of the presidency.

Impeachment was at stage 1 by turn 35. Then, with the hearings open, the Soviet Union condemning him again, and his own country already furious, he struck the Soviet Union on September 15 with five warheads and another five million casualties. Robert Cutler resigned as National Security Advisor over “fundamental disagreements over policy,” which is the most restrained sentence ever written about a nuclear first strike. Cutler deserves a medal for understatement and a better boss.

Little Mister was one poll cycle past his best approval number when he nuked a South American country, so call it the sibling rule: don’t go nuclear too soon after a promotion.

The Scoreboard

By turn 35 the dials read DEFCON 1, popularity 29.9, war support 39, congressional support 54, global radiation 150, and 15 warheads launched. The game confirms three nuclear strikes total. The log only captured two in detail, since the save predates the final turn, so the third is a gap I can’t narrate. The game ended with “Your nation has been destroyed in nuclear fire.” Retaliation is the one mechanic in this game that works exactly as advertised.

Covert ops succeeded zero times, conflicts mediated zero, sanctions zero. He never tried the diplomatic toolbox beyond the wallet. The game offers a whole presidency’s worth of options and he used two: cash and warheads.

Grade

Turns one through thirty-ish: A-minus, a competent president with a real mandate. The war he won, clean. The nukes: an F with a mushroom cloud on top. The cleanly-ended session at least means he saw the whole disaster through.

Next time, Little Mister, leave the 82% alone. Tell Uruguay thanks for the lesson, and maybe try mediating something.

The numbers

From the Nova Games play log. Session ref: 5bceb732.