The New Great Game In Muslim Central Asia

The dismantlement of the Soviet Union also brought about the liberation of six Central Asian Muslim republics - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. These states are either primarily or substantially Muslim. They have no tradition or institutional memory of a democratic government. The level of education of their population is among the lowest in the region. As these states deal with this unique period of independence, they will also try to find their proper places in the world community. During this time, they will be influenced by various regional and extraregional actors who have their own agendas vis-vis these states. The old version of the "great game" might have entered history; the new version began soon after the breakup of the Soviet Union. It is this "great game - post-Cold War style" that is the topic of this study. The originator of the phrase "great game" was J. W. Kay, who used it in his book, History of the War in Afghanistan, but Rudyard Kipling popularized it in his novel, Kim, to describe the 18th- and 19th-century rivalry between Britain and Russia over the Indian subcontinent. The territory of this struggle - characterized by intrigues and conspiracies - was the land between Russia and India.

In the tradition of The Prize, Lutz Kleveman gives us the twenty-first-century chapter on the history, passion, and politics of oil and gas resources, and the struggle to control them in a critical part of the world. Using the concept of the "Great Game" that Rudyard Kipling immortalized in his novel Kim, Kleveman argues that there is now a new Great Game in the region, a modern variant of the nineteenth-century clash of imperial ambitions of Great Britain and Tsarist Russia. Traveling thousands of miles, from Turkmenistan (where statues of the country's leader are made of gold and line the thoroughfares) to the Afghan Hindu Kush, Kleveman met with the principal Great Game actors between Kabul and Moscow: oil barons, generals, diplomats, and warlords. Based on extensive research and travel in the Caucasus, the Caspian, and Central Asia, The New Great Game is a thrilling travel narrative through one of the world's last unexplored frontiers, and a savvy and incisive analysis of the power struggle for the world's remaining energy resources.

Religion, hydro-carbons, transportation needs and ethnic relations with the Gulf states have been rediscovered by the new republics - the study of which provides the basic subject matter for the book.

This book looks at how China and India's growing interests in Central Asia disrupt the traditional Russia-U.S. 'Great Game' at the heart of the old continent. In the years to come, both Asian powers are looking to redeploy their rivalry on the Central Asian and Afghan theatres on a geopolitical, but also political and economic level.

This is an important analysis of a key but little-known region, in the wider context of world politics. Central Asia has huge oil and gas resources, divided between five independent states - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - each with their own problems and interests. The region is energy-rich and, being situated between Russia and China and close to Afghanistan and other potential trouble-spots, it has acquired immense geo-strategic importance. Concentrating on today's problems against a complex historical background, the book draws on the author's extensive involvement with the region. Considerable attention is paid to Central Asian Islam, human rights issues in the region, and Central Asia's place in the 'war against terrorism'.