Forgive me for lengthy post; I'm getting my mind off medical pain; maybe someone will find it interesting enough to discuss to explore the ideologies of the factions somewhat more.
The different faction ideologies are reasonable logical responses to an Alien invasion. I think there's some confusion about the shades of gray between some of them (like destroy and resist). I also think some are better suited to nation state behaviors and others suited to special interest group behavior. In gameplay terms, the game randomizes the different starting public support values of nations for different ideologies -- which is absolutely appropriate.
Regardless of the gameplay element, I have began to wonder -- if we considered these game ideologies as our restrictions for the framework of options existing nations/peoples would have toward an alien invasion as presented in-game, which countries/regions would realistically lean toward different ones?
I guess there's a potential for hurt feelings from different cultural biases/perspectives here, and I don't intend that, but I'm curious what others think.
Starting with the most complicated:
Destroy
There's two ways to interpret destroy, from my perspective:
1) a pragmatic perspective of willingness to deal with the aliens kinetically, and by extension, anyone that would logically provide support to those aliens.; this seems like a common-sense military problem approach that you would see in a strong, independent nation with significant military capability or;
2) a zealous, xenophobic perspective that you'd be more likely to observe in a rogue actor capacity -- ie. destroy at any cost.
The second perspective honestly feels like something more out of fiction than realistic in terms of nation-state policy; the problem with the first perspective is that it mingles too closely with the Resist mentality. Either way, it seems like the interpretation of this may make different nations/cultures natural candidates for this ideology.
The most obvious candidates for Destroy, if we only consider the pragmatic perspective are nations that have strong military capacity and a core culture of independence. I think this would apply significantly to all of the major powers, particularly USA, Russia, and China as these are in competition for hegemony (USA being the dominant hegemony until recently). The prospect of submitting power to an outside force seems unlikely for any of them. USA and Russia both have stronger cultural elements of individual independence than China as USA and Russia both have remnants of frontiersmanship integral to their culture, whereas Chinese cultural values emphasize collectivism significantly more. Russia, however, has until recently demonstrated itself much more trusting in strong central authority figures (something that may trace back to how harsh winters and some Russian history have been -- things that have required strong central authority to overcome). The USA has also been trending away from individualism in recent years as well, with some subset of the population losing the long tradition of paranoia of the central government.
Ultimately, while I think all would be candidates, it seems like USA or Russia both fit better than China for this one. The argument for USA would be that with higher military capability, there would be less tolerance for adversaries contributing to the alien cause, as the it would be a military problem to solve. The argument for Russia would be similar. Where the complication exists if we had to choose one or the other -- some would argue the USA has had no regard or respect for national sovereignty across the world as they have intervened in multiple countries/conflicts for reasons that are not simply solving a problem within their borders. Others would argue that Russia has had a great deal of rhetoric about this, often directed at the USA, and better respects national sovereignty significantly more.... however, recent events cast a rather large shadow over that viewpoint and I'll leave it at that. I think, though, this could be an important distinction in how one of these powers would actually tolerate other nations' deviating from the destroy route.
A big question that comes up in differentiation between destroy in resist is how willing these nations would be to respect the current international order. There'd be arguments based in bias for either, but in gameplay mechanics, Russia is setup to be motivated to acquire a great deal of territory with claims (in theory upsetting the international order); and in gameplay style, it would be argued as necessary to mobilize against the alien threat. As such, I slightly lean toward Russia as the primary Destroy faction, but it is a mild leaning -- ultimately Russia does seem genuine in actions about respecting the international order (as long as it is not in their perceived economic zone that is mostly the former USSR) though cynically you can likely trace this behavior to the logical role of an adversary cooperating against a stronger hegemony (USA).
Certainly many other nations/cultures may apply for this ideology, but I limited the scope in my thoughts to the big powers, as the military capability is kind of a big part of this ideology being acted upon. I'd imagine other nations, possibly many, would of course cooperate with one of these powers for this ideology. What other countries would those be? And certainly if USA were the pick on this one, I'd argue the full Five Eyes goes with it and arguably all of NATO. I also don't mean to fully exclude China from this -- the individualism vs collectivism debate just begs for China to have a role in the more cooperative factions with the aliens -- but i don't underestimate China's desire for own hegemony, their capacity for xenophobia, or their willingness to go to extreme lengths to put down threats.
As for the more cartoonish, fictional perspective of that ideology, I have less thoughts. It seems like it would be a fringe sentiment than an organized effort in effect at the nation state level, which makes it difficult to frame for this particular conversation.
The faction leader by default is of Latin American origin, it seems. Maybe the devs were thinking Brazil heavily in this faction or just calling vague reference to the radical revolutionary movements across the region in the past century (red symbol, beret, etc).
Resist
If I understand the chief difference from Destroy properly, it is that Resist more so respects the existing international organization. Ie. Resist would not be seeking to significantly alter the geopolitical landscape, but rather unite existing nations into direct military action against the aliens. To what extent this means respecting adversaries is curious. Obviously to resist the aliens, it will be necessary to take action against the ones actively supporting the aliens. Thus I'm having some trouble clearly distinguishing the actions of this faction over Destroy, other than they may not take as self destructive of a path as Destroy might. Maybe it would be worthwhile to better define destroy as an 'any means necessary' faction, while resist would prefer the world to return to normal.
If we take this perspective, much of the previous discussion of nations still apply -- this faction would likely be strongly led by one of the big powers due to the need for military capability to effectively keep resist as an option. Thus our candidates remain the same -- USA, Russia, China. Europe I'm not ignoring you or saying you don't have the capability as needed, but in terms of defense spending, you're just not there. The capacity for mobilization likely is there, however, so it is not out of mind to still consider the UK, France, Germany in these thoughts. Depending on your ultimate conclusions to Destroy, I'd say this is the alternate in terms of US or Russia. If we go with the aforementioned gameplay mechanic of claims, and we limit our distinction of the factions to respecting the existing international order, then I'd argue the Five Eyes (US/CA/UK/AUS/NZ) or even NATO as a whole are a good fit for this faction, at least in the central role. China also has a place here, for similar reasons as stated above, but again, my individual bias is moving them toward one of the more cooperative factions.
The devs portrayed the faction with a leader with an African surname (Nigeria maybe?), though appears strongly globally. Whether meant to be British, American, or African, I'm not sure (I'd need to listen to the cinematic again and feeling too lazy to boot the game now).
Now we may get more controversial from here:
Cooperate
If it weren't for the idealism aspect being touted heavily for the Cooperate faction, I would advocate for China as a major leader in this faction. They have shown themselves to be much more pragmatic as a whole in how they approach problems -- not ones to be hung up on idealism. If we ignore the idealism aspect and instead consider a pragmatic aspect of cooperation, then certainly China is a good candidate. With the idealism, this faction more so seems to apply very much to the UN, the EU, and the major proponents of global government in general. Continental Western Europe seems like a large candidate here for being the biggest advocates. I could see some elements of the Middle East playing a role here, too. Likewise, since this is less of a military option, though that is still on the table, we can start to consider many more nations in this ideology as playing a lead. I'm not sure what other good candidates there would be, though. BRICS comes to mind; particularly adding Brazil, India, and South Africa to the list. Then Japan, as well, for its diplomatic focus.
The devs opted to show this faction leader as Chinese (I think) in origin.
What am I missing here from my bias?
Escape and Exploit
For this discussion, these can be lumped together. I don't see either of these ideologies as relying on the nation state construct. These are much more partisan/interest group goals/activities. Escape is obviously much more scientific/idealistic in nature whereas Exploit is much more corporate/cynical in nature. I'm not sure it's worth trying to trace logical nations/regions to these, but I would assume exploit would be more applicable to anywhere that has more established corporate structures and influence at the government level (so much of the western world is a candidate here). As for Escape, anywhere with well developed science/extreme funding potential -- thus comes to mind areas in the western world that have high concentrations of science efforts/high concentrations of the tech. world and the middle east/oil conglomerates that are flush with cash/assets to support a massive funded undertaking to leave the system.
The Devs chose a Dutch name for the Initiate leader and Arab for Exodus.
Appease
Now my bias can be more on display. This is a pragmatic course of action with a mind toward collectivism. Thus I've held off on nominating China for the former categories as strongly, since the collectivist aspect of their culture makes me think of this faction. This perspective is at odds, however, with what I said previously -- I do not underestimate China's desire to be an independent hegemon. Perhaps the pragmatism would play a role here, though. I also see western europe as being a strong candidate here, for some of the same reasons I listed for the Cooperate faction. Here, I think, also we suffer from some shades of gray difference between the two factions. One is considered to be supporting the aliens while the other is not, though they seem to have very similar desired outcomes. If we consider this faction as actively wanting to play a role in crushing the resistance/destroy factions in order to 'save humanity', then we have to also think about military capability again. Thus I'm still considering China as the primary candidate here.
The devs chose an Indian surname for the faction leader here. I'm actually unclear about generalities in Indian cultural values. My limited perspective is they have more individualism values than collectivist, making them more compatible with some of the earlier factions than this one.
Submit
This faction has some issues; who would want to advocate for the aliens fully? This, like exodus and exploit, seems more of a partisan activity than a nation state organization. And of course, there's spoilerish lore reasons for where their support may actually be coming from. Thus, out of all of these factions, this one I do not have any candidates for. It might be funny to nominate NK for this, though. To some extent you would wonder if rogue states would be more applicable, if the aliens were offering some deal that they can benefit from. Naturally the current 'losers' of the existing system may be the most susceptible to such a deal.
The devs chose a basic anglo or american name. I'm also unclear on the accent of that leader because I haven't booted up the game to listen to it.
Summary
So to summarize my list (and thus my arbitrary attempts at territory when I next play each faction):
Humanity First: Russia, working toward all of former USSR / Possibly Five Eyes or China as alternates, based on military capability and pragmatic individualism
Resistance: Five Eyes -- US/UK/CA/AUS/NZ, maybe with some NATO; possibly Russia or China as alternatives; based on military capability and individualism, but with more respect to existing international organization
Academy: Western Europe, starting with France, working toward all of EU; BRICS (particularly China, India, Brazil as alternates, maybe Japan as well, based on desires for globalization or motivations to be left alone by outside force (but perhaps lacking military power)
Exodus Middle East, with other pockets of science output, due to role of requirement for funding and science for ideology
Initiative Pockets of wealthy, generally western nations; maybe some pockets of exploited nations themselves (Africa/etc), due to role of corporate power in ideology
Protectorate: China; EU as alternate; due to pragmatic views toward preservation and willingness to intervene in pursuit of that goal with military capability
Servants: uncertain -- would be fun to choose rogue nationstates to lead the way on this one, NK, Iran, and areas of high unrest, etc.
That is all.
Thoughts? Disagreements? Do the faction ideologies need to be differentiated more in the game lore?