The new Great Game
that is not
FILIPPO COSTA BURANELLI
The idea that Central Asia is the nexus of a Great Game
between the world’s superpowers is, in the 21st century,
largely exaggerated. Undoubtedly, the Central Asian
republics are actively engaging with the great powers
by relying on their sovereign prerogatives and pursuing
their own strategic goals. But this should be seen rather
as a strategy of the local players than a competitive game
orchestrated from Washington, Moscow or Beijing.It is not uncommon to hear from academics and pundits alike that Central Asia
is now at the centre of a new Great Game between the great powers (namely, the
United States, Russia and China), as it was two centuries ago. The term, popularised
by Rudyard Kipling’s 1901 novel Kim and first used by Captain Arthur Conolly of
the East India Company’s Bengal Army in 1840, directly refers to the 19th-century
competition between the Russian and British empires for control over Central Asia.
An example of the pre-eminence of the metaphor in today’s intellectual circles is
one of the latest books published on international politics in Eurasia, edited by
Mehran Kamrava, titled The Great Game in West Asia, which claims that there
indeed is a new great game afoot in the region.
Though vigorously denied by those policy-makers actually involved in the
politics of the region, and often criticised by more nuanced and context-aware re-
gional observers, the Great Game is still a widely adopted and popular metaphor,
rooted in geopolitical thinking and aimed at simplifying the reality. It refers to