It’s the Great Game of the 21st century

Abhijit Bhattacharyya
Author and Columnist

THE symptoms existed and had been developing for three decades. They are now gaining momentum and are likely to go into overdrive. The Great Game Part-2 has begun, albeit in a different form. Two centuries ago, the Great Game Part-1 had Moscow and London as the dramatis personae with a potential third — weak Beijing’s Han empire — expectantly lurking in the wings, trying to gain self-importance from under the shadow of remote, arid and formidable Central Asian mountain chains. Today, the canvas has enlarged to include the USA, which replaced the once mighty British empire. The strong US sea power as the fresh entrant makes “Mackinder’s land” and “Mahan’s sea” conflict more than a provocative possibility. Its contours now could easily outdo and out-match the past players of both World Wars of the 20th century. The new format of the game is bound to go full steam ahead; whether for good or bad, only time will tell.

Nevertheless, the nature of the game from the 19th century, through the 20th and now to the 21st still consists of two Gullivers — Moscow and Washington — “in the land of little people”. The latter has shown an insatiable appetite for a protracted conflict, in all weathers and every terrain, since the end of the Second World War. The game, from the Euro-Asian land of the past, has arguably broadened to include strategic water bodies and the inlets and outlets thereof.

Unsurprisingly, the first pre-requisite for the game is enhancement and expansion of the arms budget. A uniform 2% of the national GDP has been fixed for members of the Great Game. Both NATO’s 28 and European Union’s 27 members have been urged to hike their defence budget and act fast. After all, the opponent is Russia, which needs to be contained effectively and quickly.

One, however, must remember that whereas the Great Game of the 19th and 20th centuries was confined to political and diplomatic confrontation, it never turned physical. There was all-round diplomatic distrust and occasional talk of ‘war’, but it was more of ‘psy war’ to play on each other’s nerves, not actual knifing. However, the present Great Game has visible signs of a mega physical fight-to-the-finish.

Else, how does one justify or rationalise the sudden hike in the defence budget, thereby changing the West’s priority from food, fuel, fertiliser and finance to fire-power? Can all of 27 EU nations or 28 NATO members (22 countries figure in both organisations) afford to go for a sudden jump in military expenditure?

Let’s take NATO’s European states that have four main economic powerhouses. Besides the US, the world’s (2019) fourth-ranked Germany with $3.86 trillion GDP; sixth-placed UK with $2.82 trillion; globally seventh France; and the eighth-ranked Italy with $2 trillion surely can allocate 2% of the GDP for defence. But most small nations won’t be able to sustain it, all the more owing to uncertainty caused first by Covid-19 and now the Russia-Ukraine conflict which is taking the interconnected global finance towards an inexorable recession, just short of depression.

For Europe’s economic giant Germany, 2% of the GDP would amount to almost $75 billion; even otherwise, Berlin’s 2021 budget stood at $56.1 billion. In March 2022, however, the defence budget was hiked by an unprecedented $105 billion, thereby taking the current year’s military expenditure to more than $150 billion. In a way, what Germany has done in one stroke, none of the European powers can possibly do because they are not in the same league. Consequently, there’s more than a possibility that in the near future, Germany will bear the heaviest monetary and military burden among the European nations.

Further, as the Great Game Part-2 proceeds, Europe has to find its way to revive some strategic ordnance which was badly neglected over the years owing to hype over economic integration of the world to avert war. Thus, the globalisation theory lowered all things “non-economic” and “non-commercial”. Trade and inter-dependence through import and export took the World Trade Organisation and allied economic fora to dizzy heights. Globalisation was the mantra for progress and prosperity. Wealth came through cooperation; war was anathema.

Nevertheless, the West knows that no European firm (barring France’s Dassault and Sweden’s virtual non-marketable Gripen) can individually manufacture fighters. Gone are the days of British, Spanish, Italian, German and Dutch aviation companies. It’s now a consortium or a multinational enterprise. The shipyards too were in difficulty and sprawling training stations of tanks and artillery are shrinking owing to demography and economy. Therefore, a proposal to increase the military budget is one thing, and optimum utilisation and mobilisation of fully ready combatants is another. No wonder, the Europeans, after going through two wars in a lifetime, are averse to bloodshed. Tell-tale signs are all around. Europe is divided over coming to Ukraine’s rescue and sending weapons. Germany, France and Italy on several occasions expressed reservations, show of unity notwithstanding. Some landlocked Balkan states are reluctant to be part of the Great Game Part-2. They saw and experienced enough of the game that the high and mighty play for their own prosperity, and inflict poverty on the tiny ones.

That said, one needs to have a re-look at the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe because unlike the 19th and 20th centuries’ Great Game of the Asian heartland, the 21st-century Great Game is in Europe’s heartland. And Europe is reluctant to play the martyred pawn in the midst of two unmatched land and sea powers.

The treaty sets “ceilings on five categories of treaty-limited equipment — battle tank, armoured combat vehicle, artillery of at least 100-mm calibre, combat aircraft, attack helicopter” (all of which are in extensive use in the Russia-Ukraine conflict) — in an area stretching “from the Atlantic Ocean to Ural Mountains (Atlantic-to-the-Urals)”. The treaty established a Joint Consultative Group to promote its objectives and implementation.

Understandably, these treaties, conventions, protocols and declarations have no meaning, being empty words as both NATO and EU have taken Russia head-on. However, what the world has started experiencing has been succinctly stated by Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina. The US-led West has “violated human rights by hurting people across the world” through their “unilateral sanctions”. True, the Great Game is taking its toll. It’s no longer great. One hopes the West doesn’t turn the Great Game into a “Grave Game” for all.