{"id":65667,"date":"2023-08-21T05:07:45","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T10:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65667"},"modified":"2023-08-21T05:07:45","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T10:07:45","slug":"central-asia-is-the-prime-battlefield-in-the-new-great-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65667","title":{"rendered":"Central Asia is the prime battlefield in the New Great Game"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Central Asia is the prime battlefield in the New Great Game<\/a><\/h3>\n

So long as Russia and China remain the region’s dominant political and economic powers, the Central Asian heartland will remain a US and EU target for threats, bribes, and color revolutions.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: The Cradle<\/div>\n
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Samarkand, Uzbekistan –<\/strong>\u00a0The historical Heartland \u2013 or Central Eurasia \u2013 already is, and will continue to be, the prime battlefield in the New Great Game, fought between the United States and the China-Russia strategic partnership.<\/p>\n

The original Great Game pitted the British and Russian empires in the late 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century, and in fact, never got away: it just metastasized into the US-UK entente versus the USSR, and, subsequently, the US-EU versus Russia.<\/p>\n

According to the Mackinder-designed geopolitical game conceptualized by imperial Britain back in 1904, The Heartland is the proverbial \u201cpivot of History,\u201d and its re-energized 21st\u00a0<\/sup>century historical role is as relevant as in centuries ago: a key driver of emerging multipolarity.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s no wonder all major powers are at work in the Heartland\/Central Eurasia: China, Russia, US, EU, India, Iran, Turkiye, and to a lesser extent, Japan. Four out of five Central Asian \u201cstans\u201d are full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. And some, like Kazakhstan, may soon become members of BRICS+.<\/p>\n

Map of Central Asia<\/i><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The key direct geopolitical clash for influence across the Heartland pits the US against Russia and China on myriad political, economic, and financial fronts.<\/p>\n

The imperial modus operandi privileges \u2013 what else \u2013 threats and ultimatums. Only four months ago, US emissaries from the State Department, Treasury, and Office of Foreign Affairs Control (OFAC) toured the Heartland bearing a whole package of \u201cgifts,” as in blatant or thinly disguised threats. The key message: if you \u201chelp\u201d or even trade with Russia in any way, you will be slapped with secondary sanctions.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n

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Central Asia is the prime battlefield in the New Great Game So long as Russia and China remain the region’s dominant political and economic powers, the Central Asian heartland will remain a US and EU target for threats, bribes, and color revolutions. Photo Credit: The Cradle Samarkand, Uzbekistan –\u00a0The historical Heartland \u2013 or Central Eurasia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[33491,130,1997,279,284,33915,33914,33916,4076,694,33090,827,834,3142,862],"class_list":["post-65667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-central-asia","tag-china","tag-economic-sanctions","tag-eu","tag-european-union","tag-great-game","tag-heartland","tag-mackinder-heartland","tag-pepe-escobar","tag-russia","tag-the-cradle","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-us-empire","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65668,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65667\/revisions\/65668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}