Global Policy Forum

The Great Game, the fabled race for power and influence in Central Asia, has been turned on its head by the U.S.-led "war on terror" that is rallying the whole world against Afghanistan.

For centuries, the wild country astride the towering Hindu Kush mountains has stood as a buffer between Russia to the north and British and later American power to the south.

Rival empires wooed its proud tribes in vain. Now for the first time in its history, Kabul faces enemies wherever it looks. The United States, Russia, Britain, China, Iran, Pakistan and India - they all want the hardline Taliban regime out and hope a stable government can be put in.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's historic decision on Monday to back the U.S.-led campaign and supply arms to Moscow's one-time enemies who are now fighting the Taliban has closed the book on the old Great Game.

Central Asia is still a chessboard, with many national interests at play, but the pieces are no longer coloured only black and white and the alliances no longer exclusive.

"It changes the geopolitical situation," said Clifford Beal, editor of Jane's Defence Review in London. "It is certainly something none of us could have anticipated some weeks ago."

"There is a convergence of interests among the old players of the Great Game and the United States," said Bharat Karnad, a professor at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research.

"The game now is to ensure whoever rules Afghanistan does not become a danger to the rest of the region and the world.

"It is both in the United States' and Russia's interests that the source of danger to their countries and other nations - which is the Taliban regime - is removed."

"WHO CONTROLS CENTRAL ASIA CONTROLS THE WORLD"

Conquering the khanates of Central Asia became a security priority for Russia as early as the 16th century, when Ivan the Terrible seized Kazan from the Tartars and massacred its people.

By the mid-1800s, Moscow strove to build an empire to extend its might, spread Orthodox Christianity and gain vast farmlands and cotton fields for its merchant class.

Fearing the Russians wanted to advance as far as the warm water ports of British India, London scrambled to check Tsarist expansion. Envoys and spies fanned out to woo local potentates and railways were built to the edges of the Raj.

Halford Mackinder, the British founder of geopolitical theory, even saw the region as the "heartland of history" and argued that "he who controls Central Asia controls the world".

Competition for Afghanistan was intense, but neither side ever won it over. A British military force that seized Kabul in 1841 was driven out and massacred the following year in the first of three Afghan Wars that London was to fight.

After World War Two, Washington replaced London as the counterpart to Moscow. The superpowers competed with aid deals for Kabul, with the United States building highways and a large dam in the south while Moscow constructed Soviet-style buildings in Kabul and planted orchards around Jalalabad in the east.

This escalated dramatically in 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up a struggling pro-Moscow regime, and the United States - backed by Pakistan, Arab states and China - armed the mujahideen fighting them.

The Russians pulled out in 1989, their first defeat to a Muslim power since they moved into Central Asia in 1552.

THE GREAT OIL GAME

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Great Oil Game began. Freed from the Soviet yoke, the new independent states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan looked beyond Moscow for investors in their vast oil and gas fields.

U.S. companies rushed in, but Washington was against sending the fuels from the landlocked states in pipelines through Iran.

Since the next best route ran through Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islamabad and Washington backed the Taliban as they swept to power in 1996 apparently bringing the stability that foreign investors needed to go ahead with the deal.

"The Taliban were acceptable at first, but then Osama bin Laden entered the equation," said retired Pakistani brigadier Shaukat Qadir, referring to the Saudi-born militant who began training anti-Western guerrillas in the Afghan hills.

The Taliban outraged the world by barring women from school and work and destroying the unique Buddha statues at Bamiyan. The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States brought global fury down on bin Laden.

Suddenly, there was a consensus about what to do. "An American military attack is unstoppable," said Zhu Feng of Peking University's School of International Studies. "There is no option but to overthrow the Taliban."

While the U.S. now sets the region's agenda and its oil companies could reap the profits, Washington may not be able to establish the military presence old Great Game rivals sought.

"They could only stay on very discreetly, out of sight in the desert somewhere," said Mushahid Hussain, a political analyst and information minister in Pakistan's last elected government.

SMALL STATES ARE BIG WINNERS

In contrast to the old Great Game, when empires steamrollered the peoples in their paths, several independent states in the region are emerging as big winners.

"Pakistan will become more significant, we'll be back on the map," Qadir said. "If the pipeline comes through here, we'll earn $8 billion in transit fees and get our oil at half price."

The ex-Soviet republics used the crisis to assert their independence from Moscow, quickly agreeing to open air corridors and possibly airports to the United States, something that was unthinkable only two weeks ago.

Once the region's unquestioned master, Moscow found it had little choice but to agree with the Central Asian states and let U.S. forces into the region for the first time.

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