Journalistic term for predicted conflict over central Asian resources
In the late 1990s, some journalists used the expression "
New Great Game
" to describe what they proposed was a renewed
geopolitical
interest in
Central Asia
based on the mineral wealth of the region.
The name is a reference to the original
Great Game
, the term used by historians to describe the 19th-century political and diplomatic competition between the
British
and
Russian
empires for territory and influence among Central Asian states.
[1]
The term "Great Game" itself had entered into more widespread use following the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
.
[2]
[3]
History
[
edit
]
Continuation of Great Game or Second Great Game
[
edit
]
The "original" Great Game is traditionally seen as ending with the
Anglo-Russian Convention
of 1907, when the British and Russian Empires had formally defined their frontiers and ended their rivalry over
Afghanistan
,
Persia
, and
Tibet
.
[4]
In 1987,
Karl E. Meyer
wrote that the Great Game continued after 1907, citing the
Russian involvement against the Persian Constitutional Revolution
; Russia was supported by Britain in this endeavour.
[5]
Some historians view events from the
Russian Civil War
and
Soviet
wars in Asia in the
Interwar
period, and categorize them as a continuation of the original Great Game, or as a second Great Game up to the mid-20th century.
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
According to Morris, in a review of a history book by Meyer and Brysac,
[10]
the Raj more or less bows out, the Tsar is removed and the Great Game is diffused into a miasmic free-for-all among the states. Now Americans, Germans, Chinese and Soviet Russians throw themselves into the power vacuum of Central Asia, to many theorists the heartland of the world, and riddled with symbolism.
Historian David Noack writes that the Great Game resumed from 1919 to 1933 as a conflict between Britain and the Soviet Union, with the
Weimar Republic
and
Japan
as additional players. Noack calls it a "Second Tournament of Shadows" over the territory composing the border of
British India
,
China
, the
Soviet Union
and
Japanese Manchuria
. To Britain, the Germans appeared to be a secret Soviet ally. In 1933?1934 it "ended with Mongolia,
Soviet Central Asia
,
Tannu-Tuva
and
Xinjiang
isolated from non-Soviet influence."
[6]
According to scholars Andrei Znamenski and
Alexandre Andreev
[
ru
]
the Soviet Union continued elements of the Great Game into the 1930s, focused on secret diplomacy and espionage in Tibet and
Mongolia
. Agents in the new Soviet version included figures such as
Agvan Dorzhiev
, who had supported the Russian Empire previously.
[8]
[7]
Historian Heather Campbell describes the continuation of elements of the Great Game by the British as well;
Lord Curzon
, a former viceroy of India who was concerned heavily with Russia strategy, would heavily influence policy in supporting the
Tsarist Whites
against the Soviet Union, as well as participating in the
Sykes?Picot
negotiations dividing the Middle East between Britain and France with the diplomatic support of Russia.
[9]
Andreyev highlights that one of the original issues of the Great Game, a projected Russian invasion of India, was also revived by
Trotsky
with the planned
Kalmyk Project
.
[11]
: 83?97
Znamenski wrote that Soviet Communists of the 1920s aimed to extend their influence over Mongolia and Tibet, using the mythical Buddhist kingdom of
Shambhala
as a form of propaganda to further this mission, in a sort of "great Bolshevik game".
[8]
The expedition of Russian
symbolist
Nicholas Roerich
has been put in context of the Great Game due to his interest in Tibet,
[12]
[13]
Although Roerich did not like the Communists, he agreed to help Soviet intelligence and influence operations due to a shared paranoia towards Britain, as well as his goal to form a "Sacred Union of the East"
[14]
: 181?182
Jan Morris
states that "Roerich brought the bewilderments of the later Great Game to America" through
mysticism movements
[10]
called Roerichism.
New Great Game
[
edit
]
In 1996,
The New York Times
published an
opinion piece
titled "The New Great Game in Asia" in which was written:
While few have noticed, Central Asia has again emerged as a murky battleground among big powers engaged in an old and rough geopolitical game. Western experts believe that the largely untapped oil and natural gas riches of the
Caspian Sea
countries could make that region the
Persian Gulf
of the next century. The object of the revived game is to befriend leaders of the
former Soviet republics
controlling the oil, while neutralizing Russian suspicions and devising secure alternative pipeline routes to world markets.
In 2004, journalist
Lutz Kleveman
wrote a book that linked the expression to the exploration of mineral wealth in the region.
While the direct American military involvement in the area was part of fighting the "
War on Terror
" rather than an indirect Western governmental interest in the mineral wealth, another journalist Eric Walberg suggests in his book that access to the region's minerals and oil
pipeline routes
is still an important factor.
The interest in oil and gas includes pipelines that transmit energy to China's east coast. One view of the New Great Game is a shift to geoeconomic compared to geopolitical competition.
Xiangming Chen
believes that China's role is more like Britain's than Russia's in the New Great Game, where Russia plays the role that the Russian Empire originally did. "China and Russia are the two dominant power players vs. the weaker independent Central Asian states".
[19]
Other authors have criticized the reuse of the term "Great Game".
[20]
According to strategic analyst Ajay Patnaik, the "New Great Game" is a misnomer, because rather than two empires focused on the region as in the past, there are now many global and regional powers active with the rise of China and India as major economic powers. Central Asian states have diversified their political, economic, and security relationships.
[21]
David Gosset
of
CEIBS
Shanghai states "the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) established in 2001 is showing that Central Asia’s actors have gained some real degree of independence. But fundamentally, the China factor introduces a level of predictability " In the 2015 international relations book
Globalizing Central Asia
, the authors state that Central Asian states have pursued a multivectored approach in balancing out the political and economic interests of larger powers, but it has had mixed success due to strategic reversals of administrations regarding the West, China, and Russia. They suppose that China could counterbalance Russia. However, Russia and China have a
strategic partnership since 2001
. According to Ajay Patnaik, "China has advanced carefully in the region, using the SCO as the main regional mechanism, but never challenging Russian interests in Central Asia."
[21]
In the
Carnegie Endowment
, Paul Stronski and Nicole Ng wrote in 2018 that China has not fundamentally challenged any Russian interests in Central Asia. They suggested that China, Russia, and the West could have mutual interests in regional stability in Central Asia.
[22]
According to Paul Stronski and Nicole Ng, China uses its policy in Central Asia to "manage" Russia's concerns, satisfying Russia by showing China's economic aims do not threaten Russian political-military interests in the Russian Far East and elsewhere besides Central Asia, and assuaging Russia's demographic fears about Chinese immigration.
[22]
The historian
James Reardon-Anderson
stated in 2014, during the
first withdrawal
of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, that, "There may be a new Great Game in Central Asia, but it is going to have a lot less importance to the United States than the new Great Game in the Western Pacific and East Asian waters."
[23]
[24]
In August 2021,
Reuters
reported that following the Taliban takeover, the "new Great Game has Pakistan in control" of Afghanistan and also involves India and China.
[25]
In
Nikkei
, writer and retired Admiral
James Stavridis
stated that the "new Great Game" involves Russia's interest in the regulation of opium production, China's interest in rare earth minerals, a growing role for India, while the West will be reluctant to enter.
[26]
Following the 2021
U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan
,
RFE/RL
reported that "Russia, China, Pakistan, and Iran could come together in the next chapter of the Great Game," or "Moscow, Beijing, Islamabad, and Tehran are each merely looking to advance their own interests in the new geopolitical order."
[24]
In a 2020 study, the New Great Game was described as a form of "Civilizational Colonialism" in border regions and areas of territorial disputes, united by their location in
High Asia
or "The Roof of the World".
Kashmir
,
Hazara
,
Nuristan
,
Laghman
,
Azad Kashmir
,
Jammu
,
Himachal Pradesh
,
Ladakh
,
Gilgit Baltistan
,
Chitral
,
Western Tibet
, Western
Xinjiang
,
Badakhshan
,
Gorno Badakhshan
,
Fergana
,
Osh
and
Turkistan Region
. These rich resource areas are surrounded by the five major mountainous systems of
Tien Shan
,
Pamirs
,
Karakoram
,
Hindu Kush
and
Western Himalayas
and the three main river systems of
Amu Darya
,
Syr Darya
and
Indus
.
[27]
The "Great Game" as a term has been described as a cliche-metaphor,
[28]
and there are authors who have now written on the topics of "The Great Game" in Antarctica,
[29]
the world's far north,
[30]
and in outer space.
[31]
"
The New Great Game
" is also the title of a 2021 paper written by J.A. Ritoe to refer to the increasing
competition
between great
economic powers
like the
European Union
, the
United States
and the
People's Republic of China
to secure access to the critical
raw materials
required for strategic industries such as the
aerospace
and
defense industry
,
medical appliances
and
clean energy
technology.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Detsch, Robbie Gramer, Jack.
"Foreign Powers Jockey for Influence in Afghanistan After Withdrawal"
.
Foreign Policy
. Retrieved
14 August
2021
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
Seymour Becker, "The ‘great game’: The history of an evocative phrase."
Asian Affairs
43.1 (2012): 61-80.
- ^
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41
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doi
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10.2307/40202372
.
ISSN
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.
JSTOR
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.
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2021
.
- ^
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ISBN
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.
- ^
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b
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.
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.
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b
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.
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ISBN
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- ^
a
b
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a
b
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.
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Archived
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. Retrieved
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- ^
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. Leiden: Brill. pp. 13?15, 18?20.
ISBN
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.
OCLC
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.
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from the original on 24 January 2023
. Retrieved
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.
- ^
Nikolaidou, Dimitra (15 September 2016).
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.
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. Quest Books. pp. 19?20, 232?233.
ISBN
978-0-8356-0891-6
.
Archived
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. Retrieved
3 May
2022
.
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- ^
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.
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.
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b
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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- ^
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(2014).
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- ^
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.
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.
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.
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]
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2020
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2020
.
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(November?December 2001).
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.
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the original
on 3 May 2015.
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(2004).
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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on 10 December 2010
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.
[
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]
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.
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2012
.
- Rashid, Ahmed
(2000).
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.
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.
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(2001).
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(PDF)
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. Retrieved
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2020
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- The timeline of the Great Game
online
Archived
24 September 2015 at the
Wayback Machine
.
- Walberg, Eric (2011).
Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games
. Clarity Press.
ISBN
978-0-9833539-3-5
.
- Brobst, Peter John (2005).
The Future of the Great Game: Sir Olaf Caroe, India's Independence, and the Defense of Asia
. Series on International, Political, and Economic History. University of Akron Press.
ISBN
978-1-931968-10-2
.
- Johnson, Robert (2006).
Spying for Empire: The Great Game in Central and South Asia, 1757?1947
. Greenhill Books.
ISBN
978-1-85367-670-3
.
- Naik, J. A. (1970).
Soviet Policy Towards India: From Stalin to Brezhnev
. Vikas Publications.
ISBN
978-0-8426-0156-6
. Retrieved
27 August
2012
.
- Nawid, Senzil (November 1997). "The State, the Clergy, and British Imperial Policy in Afghanistan During the 19th and Early 20th Centuries".
International Journal of Middle East Studies
.
29
(4): 581?605.
doi
:
10.1017/S0020743800065211
.
JSTOR
164403
.
S2CID
161516063
.
- Paksoy, H. B. (1991).
"
"Basmachi": Turkistan National Liberation Movement 1916?1930s"
.
The Modern Encyclopedia of Religions in Russia and the Soviet Union
. Vol. 4. Academic International Press. pp. 5?20.
ISBN
978-0-87569-106-0
. Retrieved
27 August
2012
.
- Vogelsang, Willem
(2001).
The Afghans
. Peoples of Asia.
Blackwell Publishers
.
ISBN
978-0-631-19841-3
. Retrieved
27 August
2012
.
- Tunzelmann, Alex von
(2007).
Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire
. New York: Henry Holt and Co.
ISBN
978-0-8050-8073-5
.
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