The militarisation of central Asia – a new great game?

Abstract

Captain Arthur Connolly of the British East India Company coined the phrase, ‘The Great Game’, in mid-1800s, to describe the contest for supremacy between Czarist Russia and Victorian England in Central Asia. At the start of the 21st century, more than a decade after the implosion of the former Soviet Union, energy and mineral rich Central Asia (the region comprising Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan), has regained its strategic significance, and is again set to play a key role in geopolitics. The significance of Central Asia lies in its geostrategic location – with Russia to its north, China to its east, Iran and Afghanistan to its south – and its natural resources. Central Asia is an energy rich region with abundant natural gas, oil, hydel power, and rich deposits of Uranium. Central Asia is also home to large deposits of precious metals such as gold and silver. However, this time around, the players have changed. Russia will continue to be a player, thanks to geography, and will be joined by the United States and two Asian powers – China and India. The players of this ‘New Great Game’ are vying for military bases in this strategically vital region. The chess moves in this international power play interacting with Central Asia’s political, economic, ethnic, and religious faultlines are producing a complicated security dynamics with profound strategic consequences for the region and the world at large.