Oh Rudyard, what have you done?
Not a day goes by without someone referencing an ongoing “Great Game� in Central Asia. Why do authors feel the need to reference the 19th century conflict in practically every article written about the region? What made the covert war between Britain and Russia so tremendously analogous to the struggle currently being played out in Central Asia?
Practically nothing.
In a recent editorial in The Washington Post, “In Central Asia, New Players, Same Game� by Nicholas Schmidle, the author writes:
All this commotion harks back to the contest that took place in Central Asia starting almost 200 years ago, when the region’s unmapped terrain represented prime real estate to the expanding Russian Empire and to the British Empire in India…. In one grisly incident in 1842, two British agents, Capt. Arthur Conolly and Col. Charles Stoddart, were captured, forced to dig their own graves, then beheaded by the emir of Bukhara, a city in present-day Uzbekistan. Ironically, it was Conolly who, in a letter to a fellow spy just five years earlier, had coined the phrase the “Great Game.”
The term “Great Game� is often attributed to Conolly to give it a historically sound pedigree, but the reality is that the term came into use for one reason only: the novel Kim, by Rudyard Kipling (which the author of the above does acknowledge). Kipling uses the term constantly throughout his novel to describe a spy-vs.-spy game of geopolitical intrigue that was largely fictionalized. Of course Britain and Russia were both making inroads into the region, but not in the manner Kipling suggests.
So Britain and Russia vied for geopolitical dominance in the region a little over a century ago. Where in the world were the great powers not vying for dominance?
Let’s apply the same criteria, for example, to the Middle East. Were great powers competing for geopolitical influence? Absolutely; all of Europe was competing to carve up the dying Ottoman Empire, and unlike in Central Asia at the time, oil actually did figure into the equation. And yet we are not constantly being bombarded with analogies to 19th century geopolitical struggle in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter.
David Gosset, writing for the Asia Times, seems to understand this:
Today’s configuration cannot be more different. The British Empire is gone. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia is trying to maintain itself;… In sharp contrast, post-Maoist China (a fifth of mankind) is reshaping the world order. While we speak the question is no more: How is China going to change the world? But rather it is, How is China changing the world?…
Great Game, new Great Game (even to describe moves around energy resources) implies to a certain extent that Central Asia’s components are passive pawns in the hands of more powerful entities. However, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will demonstrate that the actors decided at the beginning of the 21st century to master their respective destiny. Central Asia is not the theater for a Great Game but the laboratory of a great plan, which hitherto does not include the West.
It seems as though the analogy is so popular merely because Kipling’s novel is just about the only reference many people have for the region, even though it provides little usefulness as a comparison other than the fact that there was a political struggle over a hundred years ago just as there is today. Still, because Kipling’s work had such a longlasting and unique impact in the public consciousness, it is a reference that nearly all have indulged in, myself being no exception.
