The New Great Game
The writer is Dean Social Sciences at Garrison University Lahore and tweets @Dr M Ali Ehsan
The Great Game is famous for being the political, diplomatic and military confrontation that was played for most of the 19
th and early 20
th centuries. The two actors that played the game were Russian and British empires, and the grand strategy both employed during the Great Game was to seek influence and control in Afghanistan as well as the neighboring territories in Central and South Asia.
Even though the British colonists returned and the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Great Game never completely ended, and in the post-Soviet Union regional environment, its geopolitical focus and the grand strategy shifted from seeking ‘territorial controls’ to seeking control over the oil and gas reserves including the untapped reserves lying in the bed of the Caspian Sea. Contestation also took place over the means of delivering the oil and gas of the area to the energy-starved rest of the world. The Great Game for the last two decades remained localised and thus lost much of its international prominence. But is the Great Game over?