‘The Great Game’ – game, it was not.

The Great Game.  On Secret Service in High Asia.  By Peter Hopkirk.

The book gives a very good history of the almost friendly competition between Britain and Russia in the 19th century as they tried to work out the lie of the land in Central Asia, and stop each other from getting too big a share of its spoils.  Calling this century long contest The Great Game was a bit stiff upper lip, as many lost their lives as a result of being part of this history.  Others endured appalling hardships, both from the elements, and from despotic Central Asian rulers, as well as a series of military catastrophes.  It was far from a game – more a deadly gamble which rarely paid off for the people involved, bar a very few.

The character of the Russian empire is well portrayed, and of the people who drove the vast Eastern empire into being.  The names of all the countries they absorbed disappeared for the eighty years of rule by the Soviet Union, only to reappear recently, and to be involved in another round of endless intrigue.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, China, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Kazhakstan, The Balkans, Bulgaria, Turkey, China – all now back in play as the new Empire, this time the US, imagining itself supremely powerful, comes anew up against Russian strength.

It’s not easy to understand the wars that are being fought today.  But by going back to a former time, when similar events were playing out with older technology and beliefs, you can unscramble some of what is going on now.

Old Russia was subsumed and destroyed by Marxism in the First World War.  Britain’s Empire destroyed by the Second World War.  Britain has little left of anything, being lost inside the EU, and NATO, and having no idea of why her power was removed, or even who by.  Russia has maybe seen through the Jewish bankers who were no doubt operational throughout her history, and can start to see how to prevent her destruction by them taking place a second time.

Competition between great powers wasn’t a game even the first time around.  But for millions of people, the way history plays out from here could be even further from anything resembling a game, as the Jewish cabal that hides in the background, and manipulates, plans a catastrophic reduction in the numbers of people to be kept alive on the planet.

If Russia can survive US and Isaeli  aggression, Syria and Iran, there might be hope for the rest of us, but if they achieve a single power structure operating over all, then there will be little stopping them from eliminating 90% of us.  The Game has to be played, I suppose you might say, but this time it’s a game, not of empire and riches, but of survival.

First published in 1990, before the Soviet Union ended.

And updated with a Foreword after the Berlin Wall came down.

ISBN 978-0-7195-6447-5

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