Continuation of Great Game or Second Great Game 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. 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 the United Kingdom in this endeavour. 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. According to scholars Andrei Znamenski and 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. 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 the United Kingdom and France with the diplomatic support of Russia. 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. 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". Although Roerich did not like the Communists, he agreed to help Soviet intelligence and influence operations due to a shared paranoia towards the United Kingdom, as well as his goal to form a "Sacred Union of the East".
Jan Morris states that "Roerich brought the bewilderments of the later Great Game to America" through
mysticism movements called Roerichism. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 the United Kingdom, under the directive of
Margaret Thatcher immediately sent
military aid and training to the Afghan resistance. This became known as the 'Second Great Game'. The United Kingdom
Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) provided both indirect and direct support for the
Afghan mujahideen in their fight against the
Soviet Union, including secretly arming, funding and supplying various factions.
New Great Game In 1996,
The New York Times published an
opinion piece titled "The New Great Game in Asia" in which was written: 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 the United Kingdom 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". Other authors have criticized the reuse of the term "Great Game". 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.
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." 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. 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. 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. 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." The "Great Game" as a term has been described as a cliché-metaphor, and there are authors who have now written on the topics of "The Great Game" in Antarctica, the world's far north, and in outer space. "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==