Great Games and Competing Interests of Regional and Extra-regional Players Competing Interests of Regional and Extra-regional Players

Abstract

This paper is aimed to explore the question of how the Great Games poses different socio economic, political and security challenges to regional countries especially Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. As Afghanistan is bordered with Central Asia which is the chessboard of big power since 19 th century due to its position of huge amount of natural resources and strategic location. Different proxy wars in region especially in Afghanistan by regional and extra regional countries to project their strategic interests, which changed the dynamics of the social, economic and political stability of regional countries. This power politics in the region created a lot of internal and external challenges for Today's financial stalemate of the region, political instability, ethnic diversification, disunity, religious extremism, terrorism, worst law and order situation and lack of power sharing are the results of great games and competing interests of regional and extra regional powers in the region. The involvement of US, NATO and ISAF and their influx of billions of dollars in the form of aid has significantly improved Afghanistan's economic circumstances but the social, political and security situation remain the same.