When called upon by US Senate’s Armed Services Committee in 2018 to give his statement on ‘Global Challenges and US National Security’, he made a reference to five very interesting changes that were taking place in the world. Henry Kissinger is a renowned American diplomat and a geopolitical scholar who has authored many books and has served as US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor.
What is indicating this game changing shift? At present it is primarily economic in nature and focusing on trade, investment and infrastructural development but the strategic and military components of this game are not lagging far behind. In fact, it is now witnessing the participation of different actors and experiencing a grand geopolitical shift - its area of contestation has now moved to the Indo-Pacific. The Great Game for the last two decades remained localised and thus lost much of its international prominence. Contestation also took place over the means of delivering the oil and gas of the area to the energy-starved rest of the world. 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.Įven 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. 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 writer is Dean Social Sciences at Garrison University Lahore and tweets M Ali Ehsan
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