Afghanistan's position in the new great game and its impact on regional stability

Afghanistan's strategic geographical location in the Central Asian region, has turned it to a struggle area for the great powers that want to penetrate to the region at different phases of history. This struggle, known as the "Great Game" in the international relations literature, took place between the two dominant powers of the period, Tsarist Russia, and Great Britain, for most of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century. With intervention of the US in Afghanistan after September 11 attacks, the "Great Game" started to be called "New Great Game" with inclusion of new regional and global actors. Within the framework of the "New Great Game", the policies of the regional and global powers that want to establish dominance in Central Asia over Afghanistan are the subject of this study. In fact, weak political, social, and economic structure of Afghanistan, provide a basis for the destabilization of the country by these forces. At the same time, the instability of Afghanistan affects the balance of power in the region. This weak structure and the destabilization of the country are included in the study in details. The study is consisted of four chapters. First chapter of the study includes theoretical and conceptual framework. Geopolitical theories and balance of power used as the theoretical framework of this study and relevant concepts are explained in detail in this section. The history of Afghanistan, its political structure from the past to the present and its social structure, which encompasses ethnic and religious groups of the country, constitute the second chapter of this study. In the third chapter of the thesis, the strategic and geopolitical importance of Afghanistan and policies of global and regional powers in this context are discussed. In this section, Afghanistan policies of Russia, England, USA, China, India, Pakistan, Iran and Central Asian States are covered within the framework of "Great Game". The fourth chapter, which is the last section of the study, contains the developments that emerged with the intervention of the USA in Afghanistan and continues until today within the framework of the "New Great Game". In this last section, the second Taliban invasion is also briefly discussed.