Once we have defined the scope of the game, the next step was to narrow the focus a little to determine what it is that the actors were seeking to achieve and then to set out the resources they had at their disposal at the start of the game. We felt that a good opening game would be one that defined a baseline scenario for 2050. This would be a continuation of current trends resulting from current policy. The players could change the direction of policy from within the game, but we felt it would be interesting to play the game as a continuation scenario.
In subsequent games, we might like to explore a transformational scenario, a new equilibrium scenario, or even a collapse scenario. We would do this by modifying the objectives of the players and the resources they have at their disposal at the start of the game. However, this was a continuation scenario, and that determined the player's objectives.
We felt that two aspects of the game would be key - the struggle between Shia Iran and the Sunni Taliban. and the civilisational clash between a Russia and US in the descendent and a China in the ascendant. Much of the former struggle would play out in the C4 nations (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan), whilst most of the latter struggle would lay out in Kazakhstan. The game was further complicated through the Taliban occupying an extra territorial role that involved hidden briefings and concealed moves. We deliberately denied the other players information about the location and disposition of the Taliban in order to heighten the tension within the game.
The Taliban started the game controlling much of Afghanistan, the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and the Hindu Kush in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. We gave the Taliban a small presence in eastern Iran and Xingjian Province in China, just to create a strategic option, if necessary. The Taliban started the game with hydrocarbon transit fees from China and financial support from the Gulf States. The main aim of the Taliban in the game was to develop a degree of territoriality through the formation of a provisional government, to drive out the American presence across the region, and to isolate Iran strategically by ensuring that the BRI develops north of the Caspian Sea rather than south of it. This was quite a tall order.
Iran, on the other hand, had a degree of territoriality, but was facing strategic isolation. At the start of the game, Iran was already selling gas to China via an overland pipe network and was selling oil to China that was shipped by sea. A BRI rail corridor had been surveyed between Mashad and Bandar Abbas, but still needed to be built out. This helped to determine the objectives for Iran. We felt that Iran ought to seek to transport oil to China overland rather than by sea. To do so would involve circumventing western imposed sanctions on goods and capital, so we had that as an Iranian objective. Finally, we felt that Iran would only feel secure in the region by having possession of a nuclear weapon, so we made that a national imperative as well.
This would naturally bring Iran into conflict with the United States. The United States is challenged in the region. On the one hand, it needs to maintain a degree of territoriality through the operation of a network of bases. Hence one of the US objectives was to maintain the three bases in Afghanistan at the start of the game and to acquire a further three bases in the region. This was to check and counter Russian and Chinese ambitions in the region, a second objective. This would naturally challenge the US because Russian ambitions were territorial, whilst Chinese ambitions were commercial. This objective would need to be deftly handled. The final American objective was to ensure the economic failure of both Iran and the Taliban in their respective territorial areas.
The issue of bases was a theme that we introduced to the Russian player. Our opening view of Russia was one where there had been a loss of empire over the previous 30 years, but in which Russia was still dominant both economically and culturally. We wanted to encourage the assertion of Russian authority in the region. For this reason, the Russian objective was to maintain the three bases in the region at the start of the game and to extend their influence by acquiring a further three bases. Russia is somewhat hampered by western sanctions in 2020, so a further objective was to circumvent those in order to gain access to the global capital markets. We also interpreted Russia as essentially realist, so we felt that Russia would take the view that if they had to be an ally of China, they would be the principal one in the region.
Chinese ambitions for the region are mainly commercial. The region occupies a key transit position between China and Europe. It also is a source of key minerals and hydrocarbons and increasingly has a pool of cheap labour that can be used for the manufacture of goods as Chinese manufacturing moves up the value chain. This determined the Chinese objectives. First and foremost was to secure the supply of hydrocarbons from within the region. The infrastructure to do this is not fully built out in 2020, so a core objective would be to build that out. In addition to that, the development of BRI rail corridors are important to China as points of economic development along the route between China and Europe, but also as a means of exercising Chinese tributary diplomacy. Chinese diplomacy requires China to become the indispensable power within the region. China also looks for strategic options, so we felt that a core objective would be to acquire commercial and military port facilities at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
If Iran were the southern end of Chinese ambitions, then Kazakhstan would be involved in the northern end. Kazakhstan provides a key link in the chain between China and Europe. Formerly part of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan still looks to Moscow for leadership within the region. As a key transit corridor, one important objective for Kazakhstan would be to facilitate the passage of freight and hydrocarbons between Russia and China. This would involve the further development of the gas and oil pipeline network, as well as the building out of the surveyed rail transportation corridors. Equally, we felt that it would be in the interests of Kazakhstan to impede the development of hydrocarbon transit routes between the Persian Gulf and China in order to accentuate the importance of Kazakhstan. In 2020, the Kazakh government seeks to make Astana (now Nur Sultan) a key financial centre for the region. Our interpretation of this was to give Kazakhstan the objective of developing a means by which all actors can evade western imposed sanctions.
In 2020, the intentions of the actors had taken shape, but much was to be build out and made real. There was an element of constrained resources, which allowed the possibility of the players developing through the game play. Everything was set up for the collision of interests in Central Asia in the first half of this century. What would the players make of it?
Stephen Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2020
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