The Great Game Revisited

The friendship of Afghanistan is of no service to Russia whatsoever, beyond allowing her to pass through the country to India, which means placing Afghanistan under the foot of Russia.

So wrote Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, nearly a century ago, in an autobiography which was published in London in 1901. He knew whereof he spoke: he had spent years of exile in Russia as the honored guest of Czar Alexander. During those years he had been the interested recipient of numerous confidences from high officials who hoped to enlist his aid in bringing Afghanistan into the Russian orbit. Kipling called it “The Great Game”—Britain’s attempt to foil Russia’s pursuit of the Indian Ocean, and the Indian subcontinent, beginning with Catherine the Great in 1791.

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R. T. Klass

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The friendship of Afghanistan is of no service to Russia whatsoever, beyond allowing her to pass through the country to India, which means placing Afghanistan under the foot of Russia.

So wrote Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, nearly a century ago, in an autobiography which was published in London in 1901. He knew whereof he spoke: he had spent years of exile in Russia as the honored guest of Czar Alexander. During those years he had been the interested recipient of numerous confidences from high officials who hoped to enlist his aid in bringing Afghanistan into the Russian orbit. Kipling called it “The Great Game”—Britain’s attempt to foil Russia’s pursuit of the Indian Ocean, and the Indian subcontinent, beginning with Catherine the Great in 1791.