Source: based on the book:    ‘삼국지’ ( ‘Three Kingdoms’) written by Lee, Moonyeol.

Historically, there have been many instances where there were three kingdoms in one country, especially in the Eastern Asia. Two of the most known three kingdoms are the Three Kingdoms of China, and the Three Kingdoms of Korea.  In general, both groups of kingdoms followed the Triadic Closure relationship we learned in class. That is, they formed a stable equilibrium of either two kingdoms grouping against one, or all three kingdoms being in good relationship. However, there were times when they reached a rather theoretically stable equilibrium that changed to another equilibrium very quickly.

First, let’s look at the more famous Three Kingdoms of China. The story of these kingdoms are widely and frequently read all over the Eastern Asian countries. It is about Wi, Chok, and Oh fighting or allying with one another in order to unite the vast lands of China. When the three-kingdom status occurred, Oh was a quite old yet strong and stable country; Wi was a new country yet the strongest country with the leadership of Cho-cho, a  clever and brave captain; and Chok was the newest but the weakest country with the leadership of Yu-bi, a young and generous captain. In the beginning, because Wi was the strongest, and Yu-bi had an acquaintance with Cho-cho, Chok befriended Wi and received help from it. Then, because Oh was the next strongest, there was a rivalry between Wi and Oh. Thus, Chok had to oppose Oh in order to receive aid from Wi. However, later when Chok became strong enough and Yu-bi decided to liberate himself from Cho-cho’s influence, he teams up with Oh and opposes their common enemy, Wi. This change in alliance status happened in less than five years.

Now, let’s look at the Three Kingdoms of Korea. The three kingdoms are Kokuryo, Shinra, and Baekjae. During the first half of the Three Kingdoms era, Shinra and Baekjae were allies opposing Kokuryo because Kokuryo was the strongest then. Then, during the second half of the era, Kokuryo and Baekjae teamed up against Shinra because Shinra became the most powerful with the help from China. Although this change in alliance status happened in about a hundred years, it still shows that two nodes in postive relations opposing one is not perfectly stable equilibrium.

Why are these triadic closure relationships imperfect? First of all, the nodes in these cases are countries, which can be divided into hundreds of thousands of people. Some of the people will have enough influence and power to vary the alliance status among the kingdoms. For instance, the king of the kingdoms have the absolute power to decide which kingdom to ally with and which to oppose. Secondly, each kingdom can include new participants. For example, by including a genius strategic advisor of all time, Che-gal Gong-myong, Yu-bi of Chok could raise his power to Wi’s level while Oh slowly decayed. Lastly, in such cases, the triadic closure relationship has limits because the relationships among countries vary according to their power balances. That is, the weakest two kingdoms would naturally ally with each other to oppose and level with the strongest kingdom.

So, we could see that in the real world, the Triadic Closure Relationships actually do follow (we saw that the relationships among the three kingdoms always followed the triadic closure relationship after all) although the relationships may not be perfectly adequate or limitless.