Abstract
World competition around the natural resources of Central Asia and the Caspian is not new, but the collapse of the Soviet empire has revived it. This region, believed to possess huge oil and gas reserves, is also a point of contact of different civilizations and an arena for several competing powers: Russia, Iran, China and India, as well as the United States. The September 11 attacks have not only transformed Central Asia into a battlefield of the Global War on Terror, but also reasserted its importance as a potential energy supplier alternative to other US “allies” who proved to be less reliable. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the region and in the world. But this unfortunate nation also seems to hold the key of this new “Great Game” played between regional and world powers. Indeed, Afghanistan has an obvious strategic position between the Caspian energy reserves and the Indian Subcontinent with its energy-hungry economies. Considering US constant policy of isolation of Islamic Iran and Russia's unaltered thirst for domination over its former empire, the Afghan corridor has been quickly identified as a promising way for the export of Caspian hydrocarbons to the South Asian market – a new Silk Road, some would say. Yet, more than a decade after the first tangible Trans-Afghan Pipeline (TAP, also standing for Turkmenistan - Afghanistan - Pakistan) project, construction has not begun and no one would bet on a date even today.
