Pepe Escobar
The New Great Game 3.0 is just beginning with a hat tip to Tacitus and dancing to the Hindu Kush groove
One cannot but feel mildly amused at the theatrical spectacle of the US troop pullout from Afghanistan, its completion day now postponed for maximum PR impact to 9/11, 2021.
Nearly two decades and a staggering US$2 trillion after this Forever War was launched by a now immensely indebted empire, the debacle can certainly be interpreted as a warped version of Mission Accomplished.
“They make a desert and call it peace,” said Tacitus – but in all of the vastness of the Pentagon there sits not a single flack who could imagine getting away with baldfacedly spinning the Afghan wasteland as peaceful.
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-st
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The Issue
One of the key shortfalls in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) also known as the Iran nuclear deal is that the deal does not address the growing threat of Iran’s missile programs.
The U.S. cannot forget that a little over a year ago more than 10 Iranian ballistic missiles armed with high explosives struck the Ain al-Asad base in Iraq, injuring a significant number of U.S. troops posted there.
Attention to this issue is critical.
A Growing Threat
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) estimates that Iran has the largest missile arsenal in the Middle East. Indeed, according to General Kenneth McKenzie, Commander of Central Command,
Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies, Yerevan, Armenia
The end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union have ushered in hopes of humanity s happy and harmonious future.
The ideas such as End of history became very popular both within academic circles and policymakers. There was a widespread belief that the entire planet would live under liberal democracy, and interstate conflicts will become bad memories from history. The last decade of the XX century seemed to confirm those hopes. The EU and NATO enlargement, market reforms in former socialist states, cooperative relations between Russia and the West, and the growing US-China economic cooperation have seemingly justified hopes for establishing the world united under the banner of liberal democracy.
Introducing the Emerging Technologies Institute RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
4/22/2021
NDIA graphic
In January 1991, coalition forces led by the United States launched the opening moves in the Gulf War with an air campaign that demonstrated America’s overwhelming technological superiority. The entire world watched in awe as stealth aircraft, nearly invisible to radar, flew unhindered over the skies of Baghdad; video- and laser-guided munitions struck military targets with exquisite precision; and anti-radiation missiles made easy work of defenders’ surface-to-air radar systems.
The fruits of America’s investments in research and engineering were on full display as the armed forces achieved not only superiority, but total supremacy over the Iraqi military.