Editing Great Game (section)

==Other uses of the term "Great Game"==
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan invited comparisons to the Great Game in the 1980s.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rezun|first=Miron|date=1986|title=The Great Game Revisited|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40202372|journal=International Journal|volume=41|issue=2|pages=324–341|doi=10.2307/40202372|jstor=40202372|issn=0020-7020|access-date=14 August 2021|archive-date=20 August 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220820205223/https://www.jstor.org/stable/40202372|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Seymour Becker 20123"/> Concerns of resource scarcity emerged once again in the 1990s, and with it the hope that the newly independent states of Central Asia and the Caucasus would provide a resource boom – the new "Persian Gulf" – and with it competition for oil and gas in a 21st-century version of the Great Game. These expectations were not supported by the facts, and came with an exaggeration of the region's commercial and geopolitical value.<ref name=manning2000a/><ref name=manning2000b/> Since that time, some journalists have used the expression [[The New Great Game]] to describe what they proposed was a renewed [[Geopolitics|geopolitical interest]] in Central Asia because of the mineral wealth of the region, which was at that time becoming more available to foreign investment after the end of the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite news|date=2 January 1996|title=The New Great Game in Asia|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E4D61539F931A35752C0A960958260|access-date=18 February 2017|archive-date=24 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202700/https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/02/opinion/the-new-great-game-in-asia.html|url-status=live}}</ref> One journalist linked the term to an interest in the region's minerals<ref>{{cite book|last=Kleveman|first=Lutz|year=2004|title=The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia|publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/newgreatgame00lutz/page/288 288]|isbn=9780871139061|url=https://archive.org/details/newgreatgame00lutz/page/288}}</ref> and another to its minerals and energy.<ref>{{cite book|author=Wahlberg, E.|title=Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games|publisher=Clarity Press|year=2011|isbn=978-0983353935}}</ref> The interest in oil and gas includes pipelines that transmit energy to China's east coast. One view of the New Great Game is a shift to geoeconomic compared to geopolitical competition. [[Xiangming Chen]] believes that "China and Russia are the two dominant power players vs. the weaker independent Central Asian states".<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Chen|first1=Xiangming|last2=Fazilov|first2=Fakhmiddin|date=19 June 2018|title=Re-centering Central Asia: China's "New Great Game" in the old Eurasian Heartland|journal=Palgrave Communications|language=en|volume=4|issue=1|pages=1–12|doi=10.1057/s41599-018-0125-5|s2cid=49311952|issn=2055-1045|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Other authors have criticized the reuse of the term "Great Game". It may imply that Central Asian states are entirely the pawns of larger states, when this ignores the potentially counterbalancing factors.<ref name="laruelle2011" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Kennan Cable No. 56: No Great Game: Central Asia's Public Opinions on Russia, China, and the U.S. |url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/kennan-cable-no-56-no-great-game-central-asias-public-opinions-russia-china-and-us |access-date=2022-08-22 |website=www.wilsoncenter.org |language=en |archive-date=20 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220520204550/https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/kennan-cable-no-56-no-great-game-central-asias-public-opinions-russia-china-and-us |url-status=live }}</ref> According to strategic analyst Ajay Patnaik, the "New Great Game" is a misnomer, because rather than two empires focused on the region as in the past, there are now many global and regional powers active with the rise of China and India as major economic powers. Central Asian states have diversified their political, economic, and security relationships.<ref name=":0">{{cite book|author=Ajay Patnaik|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sQneCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA28|title=Central Asia: Geopolitics, Security and Stability|publisher=Taylor & Francis Group|year=2016|isbn=9781317266402|pages=28–31}}</ref> [[David Gosset]] of [[China Europe International Business School|CEIBS]] Shanghai states "the [[Shanghai Cooperation Organisation|Shanghai Cooperation Organization]] (SCO) established in 2001 is showing that Central Asia's actors have gained some real degree of independence. But fundamentally, the China factor introduces a level of predictability."<ref name=gosset2010/> In the 2015 international relations book ''Globalizing Central Asia'', the authors state that Central Asian states have pursued a multivectored approach in balancing out the political and economic interests of larger powers, but it has had mixed success due to strategic reversals of administrations regarding the West, China, and Russia. They suppose that China could balance out Russia.<ref name=laruelle2013/> However, Russia and China have a [[2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship|strategic partnership since 2001]]. According to Ajay Patnaik, "China has advanced carefully in the region, using the SCO as the main regional mechanism, but never challenging Russian interests in Central Asia."<ref name=":0" /> In the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace|Carnegie Endowment]], Paul Stronski and Nicole Ng wrote in 2018 that China has not fundamentally challenged any Russian interests in Central Asia. They suggested that China, Russia, and the West could have mutual interests in regional stability in Central Asia.<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Stronski|first1=Paul|last2=Ng|first2=Nicole|date=28 February 2018|title=Cooperation and Competition: Russia and China in Central Asia, the Russian Far East, and the Arctic|url=https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2018/02/cooperation-and-competition-russia-and-china-in-central-asia-the-russian-far-east-and-the-arctic?lang=en|url-status=live|access-date=2021-07-26|website=Carnegie Endowment for International Peace|language=en|archive-date=1 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180301011720/http://carnegieendowment.org/2018/02/28/cooperation-and-competition-russia-and-china-in-central-asia-russian-far-east-and-arctic-pub-75673}}</ref>

The Great Game has been described as a cliché-metaphor,<ref>Sam Miller. A Strange Kind of Paradise: India Through Foreign Eyes. Vintage Books, London 2014. p286.</ref> and there are authors who have now written on the topics of "the Great Game" in Antarctica,<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1080/03004430601065781|title=The Great Game in Antarctica: Britain and the 1959 Antarctic Treaty|journal=Contemporary British History|volume=22|pages=43–66|year=2008|last1=Dodds|first1=Klaus|s2cid=144025621}}</ref> the world's far north,<ref>Scott G. Borgerson. The Great Game Moves North. Foreign Affairs.</ref> and in outer space.<ref>Easton, Ian. The New Great Game in Space. The Project 2049 Institute.</ref>