Talk:New Great Game/Archive 1

Name of article
The article's current title, The new great game, is apparently a neologism taken from the title of a book. None of the article's cited sources use this term. The article should be renamed to something more appropriate. —Psychonaut 09:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I propose capitalization of each word-as it references the original Great Game, both for the article title (which is easily understood by anyone who has studied the area) and within the article itself. Chris 07:56, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

IREX
An article (or section here) on International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) might be good. Chris 06:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Bold statement
"The governments of all four have funded the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an Islamist terrorist organization affiliated with Al Qaeda." That's a pretty bold statement to make with no source. Skhatri2005 09:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It is sourced to Ahmed Rashid's Jihad:The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. See pages 130-140 where Rashid specifically states that intelligence agencies for all four government have donated millions of dollars and military equipment to the IMU. KazakhPol 00:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Turkey funding IMU?

Come on! That is the whooper of the century. The claim that Turkey funded IMU needs explicit references from at least two independent sources. Ahmed Rashid is a disputable figure to begin with. His ties to ISI and other security services cast doubts about his reputation as an independent journalist. I would not buy any arguments in that book without cross-checking. Still, I find it hard to believe that even Rashid would make such a claim. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cs (talk • contribs) 21:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC).
 * Please ignore the above user, who has been warned by three other users for his vandalism. KazakhPol 21:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * You are doing it again

You have to provide reliable sources on disputable claims. "Extensively discussed" is not enough, if Rashid attributes it to others, then it is a lie! You are left with no source. You are making a claim nobody has heard of, provide source or I will dispute the article. The claim that Rashid coined the term "new great game" is also a reflection of ahistoricism. There are books on new great game that go back to early 1990's, at least do a quick title check on Amazon before making statements.cs 21:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * If you vandalize this page I will revert. KazakhPol 21:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Using explicit sources

On disputable claims is a wikipedia policy. See relevant help pages.cs 21:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Condescension from vandals is highly amusing, especially when it's posted right after it becomes utterly meaningless. KazakhPol 21:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * your source

says "It has been claimed Yuldeshev was also funded by intelligence services and Islamic charities in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey." It attributes the claim to a dark unknown source, so you have still not provided an independent, reliable source to corroborate your story. All you do is to point to sources who point to unspecified "it has been claimed" tricks. I am giving you the benefit of doubt, please find a reliable source before making a claim that conflicts with the basics of Turkish foreign policy. Yuldashev has been to Turkey, met several Uzbek opposition figures in Istanbul, possibly got support from certain nationalist individuals in Turkey, but to link all these to Turkish government needs explicit sources.cs 21:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC) One more point, look carefully what your source says, "islamic charities" in..Several Islamic charities in the United States supported Usama Bin Ladin, can you say United States supported Al Qaeda? United States in that usage refers to the government not to certain charity organizations. That applies to Turkey too, you are implicating Turkish government with a dubious source, which does not even bother to reference such a fundamental claim.
 * First of all, you need to sign your posts with four tildes (~). Second of all, you need to stop creating a new section every time you post on the talkpage. As for the reference I provided, perhaps you did not see "Yuldeshev was also funded by intelligence services and Islamic charities in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey." Perhaps you also chose not to scroll down to the page where it specifically lists the sources. The sources, all of which are reliable, are as follows:


 * Rashid, Ahmed. Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 2002.
 * Peter Baker, "Pakistani Scientist Who Met Bin Laden Failed Polygraphs, Renewing Suspicions," Washington Post, March 3, 2002.
 * Adrian Karatnycky, "Bush's Uzbekistan Test," Christian Science Monitor, March 13, 2002.
 * David Rhode and C. J. Chivers, "Qaeda's Grocery Lists and Manuals of Killing," New York Times, March 17, 2002.
 * April 2001, "Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2000," United States Department of State.
 * KazakhPol 21:46, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Somehow I doubt that you 'missed' all of that, and your edits on this page are just vandalism. Until I see a change in your editing patterns I will continue to revert your vandalism. KazakhPol 21:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * You can source many things in that article. Sources could be used to give the impression that sources colloborate your story. The old trick to do is to give sources without linking them to specific claims in the article. That is what that dubious defence monitor thing does. It does not reference the sentence "It has been claimed Yuldeshev was also funded by intelligence services and Islamic charities in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey." That is not accident. Nor it is a simple mistake or anything. It is an old trick.

Points am registering here before taking further moves;
 * Your source is unreliable. It uses unreferenced vogue claims.
 * Implicating Turkish government with IMU necessitates at least two independent references which make an unambigious, clear point.
 * Advancing unproveable POVs is not supported by Wikipedia. You need to refrain from such claims or reference them properly. cs 22:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * please do also provide a page number whenever you cite Rashid's book, I need to check to see in what context he makes the claim and how he supports his arguments.cs 22:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC
 * analysing the sentence used by your source; "It has been claimed Yuldeshev was also funded by intelligence services and Islamic charities in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey."
 * It does not specify what secret services and what charities it is referring to?
 * Is it saying all secret services in all four countries?

or all charities in all four countries?

or some charities in some countries, and some intelligence services in some other countries?

Which one in which country? for god's sake, could it be any more confusing?

And you start from that sentence remove the "it has been claimed" clause and directly charge four states with supporting IMU? cs 01:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

CIA funding of Al Qaeda

 * I believe you started to get my message, general references at the end of the page is no good to support contested claims. You never provided page numbers from Rashid's book so far, but I will, dont worry. You can not erase out a key fact from New Great Game. There are thousands of references to CIA funding Al Qaeda and Usama Bin Laden as well as other Mujaheedin in 1980s. I hope you now realize how tight the robe you are trying to walk on. cs 13:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I just hope you keep on using such colorful metaphors. KazakhPol 13:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * no good, there are specific references to Zawahiri and other Al Qaeda leaders in the reference. I will be back on this. That is a key element of New Great Game, dont try to erase out..If your knowledge on the subject does not go pre-google, try not to edit this page. cs 13:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * An interesting suggestion, especially since I wrote this page... I am pretty sure the Wikipedia article on Al Qaeda is post-google. KazakhPol 13:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * here is the link. Browse the book or search content for Osama which will give you page 85.
 * Yes... I know that's the link... I just posted that on your talkpage. Page 85 and 86 do not mention Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda by name. If there is another organization that you are saying is a front for, affiliated with, Al Qaeda, then please identify it. Otherwise your reference does not support the content you are adding. KazakhPol 17:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I started to doubt that you really checked the page. I can not extract the page here. He talks about "Arab Mujaheedin, including Osama Bin Laden" getting CIA-ISI funding an outgrowing other organizations. Anyways, I think you did not bother to check the page. cs 17:46, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Here is another link . I mean there are literally thousands of references to back it up. It is a fact only American government denies partially. "We gave the money to ISI what they did with it we dont know" story.

On closer observation I do see bin Laden mentioned. However, page 85:
 * "However, as Saudi arms and money flowed to Saudi-trained Wahabbi leaders amongst the Pashtuns, a small following emerged. In the early stages of the war, the Saudis sent an Afghan long settled in Saudi Arabia, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, to set up a Wahabbi party, the Ittehad-e-Islami, Islamic Unity, in Peshawar. The Wahabbi Afghans who are also called Salafis, became active opponents of both the Sufi and the traditional tribal-based parties but they were unable to spread their message because they were immensely disliked by ordinary Afghans, who considered it a foreign creed. Arab Mujaheddin including Osama Bin Laden, who joined the jihad, won a small Pashtun following, largely due to the lavish funds and weapons at their disposal."

Then in the next paragraph:


 * "Thanks to the CIA-ISI arms pipeline, the engine of the jihad was the radical Islamic parties. Hikmetyar and Masud had both participated in an unsuccessful uprising against President Mohammed Daud in 1975. These Islamic radicals had then fled to Pakistan where they were patronized by Islamabad as a means to pressurize future Afghan governments. ..."

The passage is clearly stating that the Saudi Arabian government funded Al Qaeda, and that the CIA and ISI funded Hikmetyar and Masud. I will check your other source in a second, but your first clearly does not support the content you added. KazakhPol 18:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * No! You read the whole page carefully.. The arms pipeline refers to radical Islamic parties not to the following sentence. The sentence says CIA-ISI arms pipeline was the engine of the jihad of the radical Islamic parties. That could hardly be reference to Masud and not to Osama Bin Ladin.

Your second source also does not support the content. "Osama bin Laden became the bugbear of US official and popular fantasies only after starting his career as a Saudi building tycoon with links to the CIA." Links does not = funding. Please provide a source that says funding. KazakhPol 18:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * of course that link was emotional support, or rose delivery...
 * You first go ahead clean your defense monitor mess before lecturing me on valid sources. I specifically used your source to refute you. I would never cite Rashid on such a critical issue otherwise. You are citing an intern working in an institution which does not bother to proof-read an undergraduate level paper. This article is a disgrace to new great game to begin with. There are thousands of things to write under lesser powers, you are only saying "four governments supported the same organization to compete with each other. I would fail this article in my undergrad Central Asia 101 class. It is a joke to an epic struggle.cs 18:46, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * There are many retorts I could post to that, most of which draw attention to to your difficulty in finding sources, and all of which violate WP:CIVIL, so I wont post 'em. Do you have any proof that I am citing an intern, or is this just incivil speculation? I would find it hard to believe that it's an intern since its the CDI profile on the IMU. KazakhPol 18:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Your most recent source says, on page 47, that 6,000 people were killed on September 11. In reality, under 3,000 were killed. I also, once again, do not see anything saying that the CIA funded bin Laden. KazakhPol 19:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That is fair enough for now. I will watch this page though. CIA funding Osama Bin Laden is no mystery, nor incidental or trivia, given the history of CIA shooting its own foot every once in a while.cs 20:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, the CIA funded Bin Laden and the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War, but the issue is whether that is the proper place to mention it. The article starts out explaining a rather abstract concept, and then youv'e tried to work this little factoid in there, which at most belongs in some secondary paragraph that goes into major developments and relationships. (Thats a stretch though). Its cool to add facts, but facts have to be added within some context, and (editorially) in the right part of the article. -Ste|vertigo 01:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That does not justify deleting without discussing here first.
 * The whole second phragraph can be moved under "Phases" as it starts to give some sort of historical data. Where a whole historical background pharagraph should be build. There is a huge background and overall context lacking in this article. what I added alone is more important in terms of historical significance than any other day to day minor developments cited in the article. You can not simply skip Afghan occupation and regional alliances build around it and still consider it as an essay on "New Great Game." New great game is not about four or five years of events, which this article inadvertently presents to be.cs 10:01, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

IP number
belongs to me. I got signed out in the middle of the edit. I did not realize it until I saved the edit.cs 10:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion Discussion
This article is a blog-style essay posing as an article. The non-opinion content should be placed in other articles and this article should be considered for deletion. Response? User:Curzon--Curzon 03:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * See here – Gurch 11:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree emphatically with Curzon above. This whole thing has no business in Wikipedia, unless we have a category for Books| Exploitive| Potboilers. David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 06:49, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Delete a.s.a.p.
Who is Ahmed Rashid? Is he a Nobel laureate? Perhaps a peer? Just because he published his POV in book-form does not mean his fantasies are real. This article must be deleted a.s.a.p. like the Superpower article as it is based on opinions not facts.

For instance, I can understand if the USA and Russia are playing a new great game in central Asia. I can even accept Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran as minor players - with a little bit of imagination as these nations have proven surplus capital.

But to include China, India and Pakistan as players is sheer nonsense. These are obvious Third World nations that have not even solved the basic problems of food for their own populations as of yesterday, 29th March 2008. Despite their wild goose aspirations, they are in no position to play. Infact, they are more likely to become the new victims of play.Anwar (talk) 15:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Ahmed Rashid
Ahmed Rashid never said he coined the term. He just he was among the first to use it. That part that says he coined the term must be deleted. --Jo (talk) 05:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * "Big powers such as Russia, China, and the USA; the neighbours Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey; the Central Asian states themselves and the most powerful players of all, the oil companies, compete in what I called in a 1997 seminal magazine article, 'The New Great Game'. The name seemed to stick and was taken up by the governments, experts and the oil companies." - Rashid, Taliban, p. 145 -- He certainly seems to think he was the one who got it going. I've seen others attribute it to him as well (including you, I believe). Otebig (talk) 13:29, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

More importantly, given the fact that we have sources predating this fellow, why give him any credit at all? What if I wrote a paper today saying I coined it? Would you put that in the article too? --Adoniscik(t, c) 16:14, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If you were a well-known author on the region, you made that claim in a widely-read work, and people repeated your false claim, then yes. Otebig (talk) 21:06, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Transwiki to Wikiquote?
I'm not objecting to the idea of having an article about this topic in Wikipedia. But currently, it's just a collection of quotes, whose place is really in Wikiquote, not here. Shouldn't they be transwikied over there?

I, too, often collect quotes related to the topic I intend to write a Wikipedia article about. I put them on Wikiquote, link the WQ page from the WP article, and use it for my reference while writing the article itself. I would suggest doing the same here.—Kpalion(talk) 17:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)


 * No one responded, so I just cut and pasted all the quotes to wikiquote:The New Great Game.—Kpalion(talk) 12:46, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

The New Great Game lost by the West?
According to this article yes it is. Should it be in the article? Is it a reliable source? Maybe we need some others to "cement" this statement regarding the loss. --IJK_Principle (talk) 00:23, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The "New Great Game" is a term for conceptualizing the current geopolitics in the region. This article is about the term, its use and applicability to the region and current situation. Questions about who is "winning" or "losing" the "game" is really a questions about the geopolitics itself, and not so much about this term, and would therefore belong on the Geostrategy in Central Asia page, or something similar. I'm just worried that expanding the article much beyond the use of the term itself would open up the same issues that led to the previous AFDs. Otebig (talk) 00:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

String of Pearls
Seems that the actual idea of what the "game" is based on needs further explanation.

The String of Pearls There is a good article here explaining the formation of naval bases by China around India (Burma, Pakistan,...).

Although not included in the string of pearls, the land borders also seems of great importance, namely, the opening of rail routes into Tibet and to the disputed border.

Stewart —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.75.113.78 (talk) 02:01, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Focus out of date
It seems to me that the focus of this article is out of date. When I edited the Great Game article recently, it seemed to me, using Google search to look for sources, that in the early part of the decade there was talk about the "New Great Game" in terms of geopolitics and resource oil etc. But the more recent articles (and I listed some of them as example sources in the article Great Game):

talk of the great game in regional and geopolitical terms just like they did in the days of the Russian Empire and British Empire revelries. As such this article either needs to focus on the the years when "New Great Game" applied to "Many authors and analysts view this new game as centering around regional petroleum politics" (which started after the fall of the Soviet Union ended some time around 2003 -- by ended I mean became just another secondary motive not the primary one), or it needs to be renamed and re-written to focus on the continuation of the "Great Game" (with a new disambiguation tile as it is not a "New Great Game" but a continuation of the old game with new players) either something like Great Game (21st century), or Great Game (late 20th and early 21st centuries), or Great Game (Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to today. -- PBS (talk) 00:07, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I have been looking at the source used for a lot of this article
 * . The article does not talk about the "New Great Game" but the "Great Game".

It seems from the sources available on the internet from the fall of the Soviet Union until the American invasion post 9/11, people did use the name the "New Great Game" to describe the competition between various Western powers, Russia, and China for political influence and access to raw materials in Central Eurasia. But since the American invasion most commentators have either compared these modern political machinations to the Great Game as played out by the Russians and British in the nineteenth century, or described them as part of a continuing Great Game.

So I think the first thing to do is to focus this page to the period from the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan to the start of the American invasion post 9/11, when the term New Great Game was used to describe the struggle for influence and access to raw materials, rather than the post 9/11 which is a different era and for which the term has not been widely applied. -- PBS (talk) 14:05, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Merge into The Great Game
As I explained above the term "The New Great Game" became fashionable for a few years at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s to describe the economic rivalry between the various powers in the area, which occurred after the fall of communism. But since NATO's deployment in Afghanistan and a war was resumed the term "The Great Game" is much more common. The term "The New Great Game" is confusing as it covers the events after communism and before the American involvement in Afghanistan after 9/11, ie it is "the old New Great Game". So I propose to merge this article into the "The Great Game" article and make this article a redirect to that section. -- PBS (talk) 09:20, 19 July 2013 (UTC)


 * It is over a year since I posted the last comment. I have now copied nearly all this article content into The Great Game and redirected the page. The problems like "the new" or "post modern", decades pass and they are no longer new or post modern! -- PBS (talk) 01:29, 13 December 2014 (UTC)