The Great Game still continues

The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. A second phase followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Great Game dwindled after the United Kingdom and Russia became allies of the World War-II. The term

The term “Great Game” was used by the 19th century British imperialists to describe the UK-Russia struggle for the hold of Afghanistan and Central Asia. More than a century later, the game continues. But now, the number of players has exploded and the threats it produces affect the entire globe.

The Russian Empire’s expansion into Central Asia posed a great threat to the British Empire in the subcontinent. As the Tsar’s troops began to capture Afghanistan’s one area after another, the British feared that Afghanistan would become a base for a Russian invasion of India. It was these thoughts that in 1838 the British launched the First Anglo-Afghan War and tried to impose a puppet regime in Kabul under Shuja Shah.

By the 1890s, the Central Asian khanates of Khiva, Bukhara and Kokand had fallen, becoming Russian vassals. With Central Asia in the Tsar’s grip, the Great Game now shifted eastward to China, Mongolia and Tibet. The British were petrified at the idea of a Russian invasion of India, though Russia could not realistically afford a showdown against Britain there.

In the late 19th century, Japan and the Great Powers easily carved out trade and territorial concessions. Still, the central lesson of the war with Japan was not lost on the Russian General Staff: an Asian country using Western technology and industrial production methods could defeat a great European power.

Anglo-Russian Alliance
The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 brought a close to the classic period of the Great Game. The Russians accepted that the politics of Afghanistan were solely under British control as long as the British guaranteed not to change the regime. Russia agreed to conduct all political relations with Afghanistan through the British. The British agreed that they would maintain the current borders and actively discourage any attempt by Afghanistan to encroach on Russian territory.

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 nullified existing treaties and a second phase of the Great Game began. The Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919 was precipitated by the assassination of the then ruler Habibullah Khan. His son and successor Amanullah declared full independence and attacked British India’s northern frontier. Although little was gained militarily, the stalemate was resolved with the Rawalpindi Agreement of 1919. Afghanistan re-established its self-determination in foreign affairs.

In May 1921, Afghanistan and the Russian Soviet Republic signed a Treaty of Friendship. The Soviets provided Amanullah with aid in the form of cash, technology, and military equipment. British influence in Afghanistan waned, but relations between Afghanistan and the Russians remained equivocal, with many Afghans desiring to regain control of Merv and Panjdeh. The Soviets, for their part, desired to extract more from the friendship treaty than Amanullah was willing to give.

The United Kingdom imposed minor sanctions and diplomatic slights as a response to the treaty, fearing that Amanullah was slipping out of their sphere of influence and realising that the policy of the Afghanistan government was to have control of all of the Pashtun-speaking groups on both sides of the Durand Line.

Amanullah’s programme of reform was, however, insufficient to strengthen the army quickly enough; in 1928 he abdicated under pressure. The individual who most benefited from the crisis was Mohammed Nadir Shah, who reigned from 1929 to 1933. Both the Soviets and the British played the circumstances to their advantage: the Soviets getting aid in dealing with Uzbek rebellion in 1930 and 1931, while the British aided Afghanistan in creating a 40,000 man professional army.

With this period of cooperation between the USSR and the UK, the Great Game between the two powers came to an end.

Now the new expression  of the Great Game can be described as conflict between the US, UK and NATO countries on the one hand; and Russia, China and other Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) states on the other, over Central Asian natural resources.

Seven years after the US pushed the leaderships of the Taliban out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan, an insurgency that includes these and other groups are gaining ground on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border. Four years after Afghanistan’s first-ever presidential election, the increasingly besieged government of Hamid Karzai is losing credibility at home and abroad. Al Qaeda has established a new safe haven in the tribal agencies of Pakistan, where it is defended and backed by the Taliban Movement of Pakistan. Pakistan beset by one political crisis after another has been trying to retain control of its territory and population. To what extend Pakistan will succeed in this regard, the future will tell, depending upon the sagacity of our leadership. World powers have their own interests in Afghanistan but how our leadership understands and tackles this new Great Game is a big question mark.