The Great Game

On Russia and Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine will be remembered as one of the great crimes of the 21st century. The ensuing humanitarian crisis has already caused more than two million refugees to flee their homeland. With the imposition of sanctions, policymakers will have to weigh their political options as a rise in energy prices may trigger food shortages in the coming European fall, and lead to an even worse catastrophe in Africa and other developing countries. Under such circumstances, it’s easy to see the current war in Ukraine in Manichean terms. But once the conflict ends or devolves into a guerrilla war, national identity, geopolitics, and economics, not abstract principle, will drive events.

We are returning to something resembling the “Great Game” of the 19th century, which saw Britain and Tsarist Russia struggle over the resources of central Asia, while others in Europe—France, Germany, Belgium—strove to expand their empires into commodity-rich Africa. Following a lull after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Great Game has now been renewed, with the US and China now occupying critical roles. The humiliating retreat of the US from Afghanistan, a country central to the old Game, has emboldened China and Russia to win the new one. The players have changed and today’s Great Game sets the stage for a new conflict—the “duopoly” of Russia and China, with their associated allies like Iran and Venezuela, against America and the democratic West.

This conflict will not necessarily be military, and while Russia and China are the keystones of the duopoly, they will play distinct roles. Russia remains a highly militarized nation, whose oil- and gas-driven economy provides its government with roughly 40 percent of its revenue. China, on the other hand, has been using Russia’s oil, and that of allied states like Iran, to build the world’s most formidable industrial economy. China has the financial wherewithal to provide the embattled Russian economy with ballast, including an alternative credit card system to replace that of the West.

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