Domination of the world, the old legend held, was Russian Tsar Peter the Great's last will and testament to his heirs and successors.  From the way Russia expanded through the 18th, 19th centuries and the Soviet Union's expansion through the Warsaw Pact, one would think the legend was actual codified law.

The legend of Peter's testament was always in the background of the Great Game.

The Great Game, the rivalry between Russia and Britain in the early to mid 19th century for domination of Muslim Central Asia, was largely a battle for commercial enterprise.  The British East India Company trying to open markets and trade routes before the Russians.  The British were also fearful the old legend of Peter The Great was true and Russia had designs on India.

The Great Game was played out in countries that are in today's headlines--Georgia, Afghanistan, Iran.

The justifications used by the Russians in the 19th century to engage in military incursians--to free Russian citizens from the Khan of Khiva--mirror the modern justification for invading Georgia--freeing Ossentian Russians from Georgia.

If the Great Game is on again, only the Russian side is playing for keeps. 

In the new version of the game, the goal is not access to the bazaars and trading cities of central asia--but the resources of central asia.

A perusal of the Forbes billionaire list shows a strikingly large number of Russians.  Moreover, many of the Russian billionaires are in the raw materials industries--they take stuff out of the ground and turn it into a useable commodity.

Below is a list of the modern version of the Great Game countries and their resources as listed in the CIA World Factbook .

Afghanistan--natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semiprecious stones

Armenia--small deposits of gold, copper, molybdenum, zinc, bauxite

Azerbaijan--petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, nonferrous metals, bauxite

Georgia--forests, hydropower, manganese deposits, iron ore, copper, minor coal and oil deposits; coastal climate and soils allow for important tea and citrus growth

Iran--petroleum, natural gas, coal, chromium, copper, iron ore, lead, manganese, zinc, sulfur

Kazakhstan--major deposits of petroleum, natural gas, coal, iron ore, manganese, chrome ore, nickel, cobalt, copper, molybdenum, lead, zinc, bauxite, gold, uranium

Kyrgyzstan--abundant hydropower; significant deposits of gold and rare earth metals; locally exploitable coal, oil, and natural gas; other deposits of nepheline, mercury, bismuth, lead, and zinc

Tajikistan--hydropower, some petroleum, uranium, mercury, brown coal, lead, zinc, antimony, tungsten, silver, gold

Turkmenistan--petroleum, natural gas, sulfur, salt

Ukraine--iron ore, coal, manganese, natural gas, oil, salt, sulfur, graphite, titanium, magnesium, kaolin, nickel, mercury, timber, arable land

Uzbekistan--natural gas, petroleum, coal, gold, uranium, silver, copper, lead and zinc, tungsten, molybdenum

If the new version of the Game is as commercially oriented as the original, then the former Russian dominions above have what the Russian billionaires specialize in--oil, gas, minerals and energy.  The countries are also the routes in which it will have to be delivered.

I am not a scholar of the Great Game, but definately a fan.  And as a fan, I see the commercial prospects as the driving force now as it was nearly 200-years-ago.

The greatest prize of the game then was India.  And it still may be.  Not the conquest of India--but the market of India for the raw materials.  China is also a market for the raw materials with its manufacturing industry--many of those plastic products are made with petroleum.

Both economies, like all others, are fueled by oil and natural gas.

The legend of the final testament of Peter The Great--for Russia to dominate the world--is probably not true.  But even if it was, the way to dominate the modern world is as it always was--a mixture of arms and commerce.  In that sense, though the players of the game may termporarily change, the game is always on.

Ah, the Spring and Summer of 2007, when the war in Iraq was lost, Generals like Petraeus were scolded as incompetent and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was committed to forcing vote after vote to end the war .  Truly the halcyon days for the  Democrats and anti-war left.  But so much has changed since then.

The roll call votes and rhetoric of scarcely 12 months ago are now a campaign issue--an issue many, like Senator Obama, would like to avoid.

Back in 2007, supporting the surge was seen as a major risk.  The Democrats wanted to impose defeat through legislation or force Republicans to on the record as a wedge issue.  The record would then be used in the upcoming elections.

But history did not cooperate with Reid and the Democrats.  Petraeus proved the most competent of Generals.  The war in Iraq is now the exact opposite of 'lost.'  And the wedge is now being used against Obama and Democrats.

In June of 2007, the Politico reported on a letter Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent to President Bush:

  "As many had foreseen, the (Iraq) escalation has failed to produce the intended results," Reid and Pelosi said in a letter sent to   Bush prior to their meeting. "That is why we intend to again send you legislation that would limit the U.S. mission in Iraq, begin the phased redeployment of U.S. forces and bring the war to a responsible end."

Now, 14 months later, Senator Obama wants to avoid talking of those votes and the strategy of his party's leadership to impose a legislative end to the war.

Obama claims bringing up his past votes and positions is smearing his patriotism.

Obviously the votes and strategy of the Democrats in 2007 has backfired horribly--as I predicted it would in February of 2007 .

In 2007 Obama did not object to the Reid plan to "force a series of votes on Iraq designed exclusively to make Republicans up for reelection in 2008 go on record in favor of continuing an unpopular war." 

Now that Obama's voting record is on the opposite side of history, he is hiding from it using the last refuge of a scoundrel.

The story is usual pointless MSM offering, but look at the purported picture of Senator McCain .

Doh...

It is actually Ted Stevens.  Geez.  It is even embroidered on the jacket.  I guess all older Senators look alike to the AP.  That is ageism!

Screen cap below.

With the Russian Bear deciding the 'Great Game ' is back on and steady growth of the Chinese military--History and big geopolitics is, as Robert Kagan says , making a comeback.

Geopolitics and History invariably lead to the Clauswitzian politics by other means--war.

And in those other means, the United States has a distinct advantage over all others--not just in machines and materials--but where it counts the most:  NCO and Officer Leadership.

On March 20th, 2003, when the U.S. led coaltion crossed from Kuwait into Iraq, very few officers and non-commissioned officers of any rank had actual combat experience.

Five years and several months later--the United States military is one of the most combat-experienced militaries in history.

Virtually every officer of the line has led Soldiers and Marines on daily combat missions.

Sergeants and Junior Staff NCOs have come up through the ranks not in garrison or on training exercises but in combat.

Virtually every U.S. Rifle Platoon has something the Russian and Chinese military do not--experience in a gun fight.

While many may not believe that the U.S. has started winning in Iraq, the General Staff's of the authoritarian regimes know what is happening and surely must be wondering how their untested conscripts would fare against the battle hardened 1st Marine Division or 82nd Airborne.

In a proxy war, the lessons learned from Al Qaida--the Improvised Explosive Device-- and the Jaish al Mahdi --the explosive force penetrator-- would be employed by U.S. advisors.

If the authoritarian regimes were wise enough to download a copy FM 3-24 , the Counter Insurgency Manual, the U.S. officers and NCOs who implemented the tactics know all the tricks and how to subvert them.

The war in Iraq--whether a person thinks it was a mistake or the correct course of action--has led to an unintended advantage at the brink of the return of history--first hand experience in implementing politics by other means on a large scale all the way down to the Platoon level.

(Welcome Instapundit readers!  Take a look around and watch the trailer from the latest movie .) 

I prefer old books to modern punditry.

If you want a primer on what is happening in Georgia, I suggest:

'Eastern Approaches' by Fitzroy MacLean

'The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia' by Peter Hopkirk

(Surprisingly, both are currently available on Amazon.com)

My confidence that the surge would work was based on reading old, out-of-print books by British Officers who succeeded in quelling the Malayan insurgency in the 1950s.

Throw in a little Gibbon and the Histories of al Tabari, and it is not hard to see a lot of the underlying fundamentals of Iraq.
The modern punditry and analysis, and even modern books, are tainted by the current political climate.

Hopkirk's book is a bit 'young,' being published in the early 1990s, but it is distant enough of an analysis to be more reliable than modern punditry and its political positioning.