Christoph German joins us for this edition of the Wellahara Geopolitics podcast.

He is a student of political science.

He writes for Sybil Edmund's Boiling Frogs Post and his blog is called

The New Great Game, reflecting one of his primary areas of interest. You can find his writings

on Boilingfrogspost.com and Christophgerman.blogspot.com as well as a monthly podcast

he does at Porkens Policy Review.com, which is now accepting Patreon support,

which you can tell us about that a little bit later. Welcome, Christoph. Thanks for having me.

Today I'd like to cover two key issues, a general overview of the new great game in Central Asia

and the Caucasus, and a brief summary of the attempted coup in Turkey recently.

So let's begin with Central Asia.

The original great game took place between the Russian and British empires during the 19th century.

The game continues today between the nation of Russia and the American Empire together with the China rising. You described

this new great game on your website as the struggle for influence, power, hegemony and profits

between the US-dominated NATO, its GCC or Gulf community proxies, Russia, China, and other regional players.

Some of the Central Asian countries have chosen sides, while others seem to meander between

the Washington or Moscow, Beijing, Axis, if you will, or alliance.

Central Asia is an absolutely wonderful place.

I used to live in Mongolia. And taking

Mongolia as just a quick example, it seems to not have quite yet aligned itself with either Washington

or Moscow. And you can correct me if I'm wrong there. It seems to maintain a central or neutral

position. I like to call it the Switzerland of Central Asia.

Kazakhstan, Kurdistan, and Tajikistan seem to be in Russian sphere, while Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

...