ISAS Briefs

The previous great game was played in one part of Asia and the players were form Europe. Britain and Russia worked hard to gain influence over Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries. London wished to install a puppet regime in Kabul to protect the northwest flank of its Indian Empire. Moscow, indulging in its perennial quest to gain access to a body of warm water, saw Afghanistan along with the northwest parts of British India offering one way of achieving this goal. Rudyard Kipling called it a "great game" since the contestants chose not to fight but to manoeuvre in a not very crowded field. Two different contestants are playing the new game. There are some major differences too. This time, the entire Asian continent is in play and one of the contestants is not from within the area. This paper examines how the two new teams of policy makers in Beijing and Washington are entering the contest and outlines some of the problems they face.