It has become fashionable to refer to the current jockeying for influence and resources in Central Asia as the new Great Game. Is there a "Great Game II" as there was a World War II? And is that a useful template for understanding that part of the world today?

The original Great Game was the rivalry between the Russian and British empires for the markets of Central Asia. There was an overlay of ideology -- bringing Christianity and civilization to the heathen who, then as now, displayed a proclivity for beheading. But the real issue was whether Central Asians "shall be clothed with the broadcloth of Russia or of England" and purchase "implements of steel from St. Petersburg or from Birmingham." Great Game I began in 1807, when Napoleon proposed a joint attack to Tsar Alexander I on the jewel of the British Empire, India, and ended in 1907, when ...