Armenia's Compulsory Chess Curriculum (and how it might change the world.)

In an attempt to make the world a brighter place, Armenia has added compulsory chess lessons to its curriculum for pupils as young as seven.

Beyblades and Pokemon cards just won't cut the mustard for adolescent strategic training these days.

Armenia - as a former soviet state and a place of eccentric cultural heritage - is as obsessed as any other developing country with improving the quality of its education. Over the past 7 years, Armenia has won the comically pretentious 'chess olympics' three times. The country's leading chess player Levon Aronian is a national hero; Bestowed the title 'Honoured Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia' by the government, he is essentially the Armenian David Beckham, minus the angelic face and athlete's physique - yet crucially in possession of a fully-functioning brain. I suppose he's a bit more like Sebastian Coe, you might say...if you were Sebastian Coe. The blubbery narcissistic windbag.

As any civilised member of society knows, the natural progression from domination in any sport is a dogmatic shoving-it-down-the-throats-of-anyone-and-everyone. The Armenian leadership has even gone so far as legislation to such an effect, by forcing their premature kinderwinks to play the family-friendly war simulator. Beyblades and Pokemon cards just won't cut the mustard for adolescent strategic training these days, chess providing you with strategic know-how, competitivity and hours of fun. Right...

The games of chess I experienced at a young age were about as tactically coherent as the Pyongyang guide to military strategy and about the same level of fun as turning on a tap. The only thing I found more boring at the time was the activity that led me to consider playing chess, such was the drudgery involved. All this aside, perhaps if I were given some actual insight into how to play the game - and a suitable reward for winning - I would have found some enjoyment in it, maybe even suffered some irreparable brain development. Gee-whiz!

But hold on a minute! Chess teaches children the raw basics of aggressive military combat. Flank your opponents, attack their most vulnerable resources and if all else fails, shatter the foundations of their society with religious extremism. Those forwardly challenged bishops, a covert metaphor for the subversive nature of religion. This is what we should be teaching our children? That we should ruthlessly strike at those who are our equals, but for the colour of their skin? What exactly is Armenia's plan? To condition a super-race of ruthless, xenophobic tactical experts? The Hitler youth had it all wrong! Start them off earlier and subconsciously impregnate them with your sadistic views through the most socially acceptable of violent war-games. In twenty years time we'll all be hailing Aronian as our 'Supreme Master of Racial Cleansing' as we goose-step through the black-and-white marble streets, homage to the game that started it all.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps it will merely plant a seed of intellectual strategy, one that will blossom into a nation of sharp-minded, forward-thinking individuals. Or perhaps, as is most likely, it will be quickly forgotten about and have zero impact on their meagre lives, as they toil through the economic wasteland we are so happily laying out for them. Either way, it might be worth a go Cyprus, you've got very little to lose.

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