Lutz Kleveman
Author
The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia
January 24, 2004
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Crude oil, once seen as a wealth-creating blessing for mankind, is fast
turning into the “devil’s tears”. The struggle to control the
world’s remaining energy reserves increasingly culminates in bloody
conflicts and the killing of innocent civilians, with the war in Iraq
only being the latest example. In The New Great Game, Lutz Kleveman gives us a fearless, insightful
and exacting portrait of a new battleground in the violent politics and
passion of oil: Central Asia, known as the "black hole of the
earth" for much of the last century. The Caspian Sea contains the
world’s largest amount of untapped oil and gas resources. It is
estimated that there might be as much as one hundred billion barrels of
crude oil in the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan
alone.
Using the concept of the 'Great Game' that Rudyard Kipling immortalized in his novel Kim, Kleveman argues that now a new 'Great Game' rages in the region, a modern variant of the nineteenth century clash of imperial ambitions of Great Britain and Tsarist Russia. Only this time the stakes are raised.
Desperate to wean its dependence on the powerful OPEC cartel, the United States is pitted in this struggle against Russia, China, and Iran, all competing to dominate the Caspian region, its resources and pipeline routes. Complicating the playing field are transnational energy corporations with their own agendas and the brash new, Wild West-style entrepreneurs who have taken control after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Traveling thousands of miles, from the Caucasus peaks across the Central Asian plains down to the Afghan Hindu Kush, Kleveman met with the principal Great Game actors between Kabul and Moscow: oil barons, generals, diplomats, and warlords.
Based on extensive research, The New Great Game is a gripping narrative, and a savvy and incisive analysis of the power struggle for the world's remaining energy resources.
Lutz C. Kleveman is a free-lance journalist and book author who lives in New York and at Gut Ankeloh, Germany.
Born in Germany in 1974, he studied French Literature in Aix-en-Provence, France, and International History at the London School of Economics (LSE), United Kingdom. Kleveman has worked for the news channel CNN and German Television ZDF in Washington, USA, and has written for the Daily Telegraph, Newsweek, DIE ZEIT und Der Spiegel Online. Specializing in conflict zones, he has reported from the Balkans, West Africa, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East.
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