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From Non Alignment to Vishwamitra Bharat: Reimagining India’s Foreign Policy for a Multipolar Future

FOREIGN POLICY IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE and established means of communicating a country’s national interests and strategic concerns within the geopolitical arena. From the principles of non-alignment established by a newly independent nation in the mid-twentieth century, to the famous declaration of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakkam during India’s G20 presidency in 2022-23, which advocates for a shared future for the world, India’s foreign policy frameworks have consistently demonstrated independence, pragmatism, and a focus on peace and stability, despite lacking a formal doctrinal or institutionalised approach. India’s historical and cultural experiences have continuously shaped the philosophical foundations of its foreign policymaking. Furthermore, guided by a reflective intellectual tradition, India’s foreign policy principles have anticipated and responded to geopolitical and national developments.

There is a scholarly consensus on the evolution of foreign policy in India and its framing from non-alignment principles to expressions of strategic autonomy. Today, the geopolitical order, strained with wars, conflicts, and trade disruptions, coincides with India’s march towards the vision of a developed nation, i.e., Viksit Bharat 2047. As the most populous country and the fourthlargest economy by nominal GDP, soon to become the third-largest economy, India, in the twentyfirst century, requires an unambiguous approach and a culturally rooted idiom to foreign policymaking that provides the ideational moorings to its ambitions and global engagements.

In this context, the paper argues that the contemporary expressions of Bharat’s Vishwamitra foreign policy framework, in both political and academic discourse, present a coherent, multialigned, and engaging policy alternative that supports India’s rise as a confident and proactive global power. The paper suggests that the shift from non-alignment philosophy to the Vishwamitra Bharat principles offers further policy and practical imperatives to enhance Bharat’s role as a responsible, partnership-focused, and leading twenty-first-century power while advocating for multi-polarity and multilateral governance to promote a stable and predictable world order. The paper also provides a systematic definition of Vishwamitra Bharat frameworks and their analytical variables for foreign policy analysis.

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Book Discussion on Invincible Somnath A Saga of Millennia

Contents

Opening Remarks — Rami Niranjan Desai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Address — Dr. Meenakshi Jain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Panelist — Heeraman Tiwari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Panelist — Himanshu Roy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Panelist — Côme Carpentier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Editor’s Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

About this edition. This is a cleaned and structured version of the automatic transcript of the book discussion held at the India Habitat Centre on 7 October 2026. Speaker names have been restored from the event poster, obvious speech-recognition errors have been corrected, and passages that could not be reconstructed are shown in [italic square brackets]. See the Editor’s Notes at the end for details and for items that need verification.

 

MODERATOR · OPENING REMARKS

Rami Niranjan Desai

Distinguished Fellow, India Foundation

“History is important enough to be told the way she has told it.”

[The recording begins mid-sentence.] …Dr. Jain has really addressed this gap in her book. We learn so much more about the sacred geography of Saurashtra, keeping at the centre the civilizational memory — the resurrection of this temple over and over again through the many disruptions it has had to face. If you look at the book, at the resources, at the archives she has gone through, at the pages of appendices, the research that goes into a book like this is incredible. And I think history is important enough to be told the way she has told it.

Because, after all, Somnath is the first of the twelve Jyotirlingas [transcribed as “the first of the four golden rings”]. It is the abode of the Lord of the Moon, where Lord Shiva is worshipped as Somnath. [A further phrase here is unclear in the recording.]

I won’t speak much about the book, but I will tell you that Dr. Jain’s research draws on multiple sources: religious texts, inscriptions, archives, archaeology, foreign accounts and Persian accounts. The book moves from Somnath’s early history right down to the last chapter, very interestingly titled A Thousand Years Later, and it ends with Prime Minister Modi’s article and his visit to the temple on 11 May 2026 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the post-independence construction.

Dr. Jain, I will now invite you to speak for about ten minutes. First, a word on the rules of the panel. For those of you who come here often, you already know that we maintain strict decorum. For those who are new: each panelist will get ten to fifteen minutes. At 7 o’clock we will break for question-and-answer. I will take the questions in a group; you may raise your hands and the team will bring the microphone to you. Please, no interjections, debates or arguments. We will take a question, and the panelists will answer; it is entirely the panelists’ right to choose which questions they wish to answer. There will be tea afterwards, and if you wish to continue the discussion, you may do so then.

 

AUTHOR · ADDRESS

Dr. Meenakshi Jain

Member of Parliament · Author, Invincible Somnath: A Saga of Millennia

“This civilization survived not because of kings or warriors. It survived because of the determination and contribution of ordinary people.”

I would like to begin by thanking the Foundation for organizing this, and all of you who have taken time out to be here this evening.

As historians, when we study any sacred site, the tendency is to find out when the temple was first built, when it was destroyed, and how many times it was destroyed. But for those who revere a site, it is not seen in those terms. [The remainder of this thought, and a passage comparing other sacred sites such as Kashi and the oldest temple in India, are too garbled in the recording to reconstruct.] The point is that, for us, a sacred site is bound up with the memory of our civilization.

Similarly, in Somnath, a civilizational memory connects the place with Soma, the Moon, who was cursed by Daksha Prajapati and cured of that curse by Shiva. Daksha had given his twenty-seven daughters in marriage to Soma. Soma had promised to treat each of them equally, but he favoured only one. The other daughters went to their father to complain, and Daksha cursed Soma [the wording of the curse is unclear; in the traditional account, that he would lose his lustre]. Soma went and worshipped Shiva at the place where three rivers meet. He performed great austerities and created a Shivling there. Shiva was pleased with his austerities but said, “I cannot undo the curse, but I can lessen it: for fifteen days you will wax, and for fifteen days you will wane.” And to protect Soma further, Shiva placed the crescent moon on his head. These are the civilizational memories we have of that time.

Of course, we also know that Lord Krishna met his end there, and there is a beautiful small temple at the spot. That is the place where Krishna is said to have taken his last breath. So any story that is there in our memory, in our religion, in our culture — we find that site revered even to this day.

Why are we a civilization in continuity? Not because of the patronage of kings or rulers, but because of the beliefs and devotion of ordinary people like you and me. People who went to Somnath were not receiving rewards from a king. They went there because they said: we cannot forsake our Gods, and the Gods have not forsaken us.

The seven temples of Somnath

Now, to come to Somnath, there is a curious question that confronts all historians: when was the first temple built? This does not interest the believers in the sanctity of Somnath. But to answer it — Somnath was built seven times. Let me quickly go through the seven temples.

The first temple is supposed to have been built by Somasharma, the founder of the Pashupata order [transcribed “Vashupata”]. No trace of that temple has survived. There is evidence of another temple dated 871. We have an inscription which speaks of a resident of Somnath, so it is possible that this temple existed even before 871. It was likely built by the Maitrakas [transcribed “the Maitreya caste of Varanasi”; probably the Maitrakas of Vallabhi].

Then the history becomes clearer, and we have the Solanki (Chalukya) king Mularaja, who built a temple. From that time we can trace the history of the temple. Mularaja’s temple is the one that was destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni [the recording says “destroyed by Moolraj”, an evident slip].

Evidence of the destruction

There is a tendency among certain academics to deny the existence of the temple or to deny its destruction. But, unfortunately for them, we have eyewitness accounts from that period describing its destruction. We have all heard of Al-Biruni [transcribed “Alchemony”]. He speaks of the lingam being broken into four parts and taken to Ghazni.

Then we have other historians. One mentions how much difficulty Mahmud had in getting back home, because the resentment at what he had done was so great that people combined to block his passage, and some even led him down the wrong path. He suffered so much in reaching home, and half his troops died, because he was misled on the way by a man who claimed to be a priest of the Somnath temple. Nobody was telling the Somnath priest that he must take revenge; it came from within them.

The third, and more interesting, account is that of a poet who laments the death of Mahmud. What he says is surprising: alas, in him, the Brahmin … [the poet’s exact words are unclear in the recording]. So, people interested in history, in our civilization, must not ignore the role of iconoclasm — what role it played. [A remark about the eighteenth century, to be discussed later, is unclear.]

Rebuilding, and a mosque built with help

Mahmud destroyed the temple, and within a decade of that destruction, three kings of North India gathered together and rebuilt, or repaired, the temple. We are told that these temples meant nothing to us. If they meant nothing, how is it that within a decade three kings of North India came together to rebuild it? After that we have a series of rulers; I will not go through them all. Karna, Jayasimha and Siddharaja are the prominent ones to remember.

It is striking that about 200 years after Mahmud’s destruction of Somnath we have a very important inscription: the Veraval inscription [transcribed “Neeravani”]. It records that a trader from Arabia went to Somnath and asked the people there whether he could build a mosque. The people of Somnath, and the ruler, helped him to build the mosque, and he built it — 200 years after Mahmud’s attack. The inscription on that mosque has survived and has been translated by eminent scholars. It specifies how much money and how much land were to be assigned, and how the money was to be spent on the building; and finally it says that if any money is left over, it should be spent on the mosque. D. C. Sircar [transcribed “D. C. Sarkar”], who translated the inscription, remarks that it is really surprising that the donor never thought of giving anything to those who had helped him create the mosque.

Then we have Alauddin Khalji, the Sultan of Delhi, who attacked Somnath. [The recording is unclear about the chronicle written on this episode and about what happened as his forces returned to Delhi.] So it was not a one-way story, in which somebody came from Delhi or Ghazni, demolished the temple, and there was no response. There was a response. I told you that rulers had rebuilt the temple within a decade of Mahmud’s attack, and, according to one account, Alauddin Khalji’s army was also vanquished [the chronology of this sentence is unclear as transcribed].

The story goes on. So many kings contributed, and we have evidence of kings coming on pilgrimage to Somnath. How do we know? Because an inscription of theirs records that they went to Somnath on pilgrimage. It is a fascinating story, and it tells us that this civilization survived not because of kings or warriors. It survived because of the determination and contribution of ordinary people.

Independent India: Junagadh and the rebuilding

Since I have very little time, I want to come to the most perplexing part of the history of Somnath: what happens in independent India. There were two states [one name is unclear in the recording] and the Junagadh state. Junagadh was originally ruled by Rajputs, but in the eighteenth century a Muslim, Sher Khan Babi [transcribed “Sher Khan Gandhi”], established the dynasty of Junagadh, and that dynasty ruled until 1947. It is notable that Somnath fell within the territory of the Nawab of Junagadh.

In 1947 the most pressing issue was which way a state would go: to Pakistan or to India. Junagadh was a state with an 80 per cent Hindu population. Sardar Patel sent messages, but the ruler and his Diwan — Shah Nawaz Bhutto, a Muslim League politician who came to Junagadh in May 1947 and became Diwan — would not tell him which way they were going. They said the matter was under consideration. Finally, on 15 August, they declared that Junagadh had acceded to Pakistan [the recording says “India has ceded to Pakistan”, an evident slip]. The Government of India came to know about it two days later, and a month later the Pakistan government said that it had accepted, and that Junagadh was now part of Pakistan.

You see, when we talk about the history of countries and civilizations, there is no straight path. Imagine what we would be talking about today if Junagadh had gone to Pakistan. We have lost so much of our sacred heritage because of the division of the country. This was an attempt by the Diwan and the ruler to keep the Government of India in the dark.

And then, when they realized that it was not possible to maintain their independence — because everything they were getting, the electricity, the supplies, the food, came from India — the Nawab rushed to Pakistan with his family and his wealth, leaving some of his family behind. Shah Nawaz followed a little later. Sardar Patel — how much we owe him — had Indian forces on the borders of Junagadh, and when the moment was right they entered, and that is how Junagadh became a part of India.

I have not spoken about Ahilyabai Holkar’s temple at Somnath [the surrounding sentence is garbled]. But Sardar Patel, standing at Ahilyabai’s temple, took a pledge there: “I will rebuild the temple soon.” So the two important figures in the rebuilding of this temple were Sardar Patel — who, unfortunately, died very soon — and K. M. Munshi. We should remember what service they did to our civilization.

When the movement to rebuild the temple began, the Prime Minister in Delhi was appalled and shocked. He said, in effect: what is this? How backward can we get, how regressive? He wrote to K. M. Munshi; he first wrote to the President of India, saying he feared the President was going to Somnath to preside over the inauguration. The President wrote back — and all these letters are there in the published works of Jawaharlal Nehru; no imagination is required, no falsification of history is required. The President replied that he had been going to so many temples, so what was the problem if he went to this one? And he actually went to that temple and presided over the inauguration.

Then there is a series of letters from the Prime Minister to K. M. Munshi, saying: I cannot understand what you are writing to our ambassadors abroad, asking them to send twigs from this tree and drops of water from that river — how is it going to help? Do you realize what a negative impression it is creating? [A sentence about “a consecrated new temple of India” is unclear.] In any case, the Prime Minister in Delhi was totally appalled and shocked, and he expressed his displeasure in sixteen pages of letters, which are reproduced in the works of Jawaharlal Nehru.

So we recall that moment, and we recall 2026, when another Prime Minister led the celebration of the 75th anniversary of that temple.

A wounded civilization

Civilization has many paths, which go up and down. Sometimes they are not revived; there are many examples of civilizations that did not revive. But I think we are grateful and indebted to our ancestors and to the passage of our civilization. We overcame all obstacles. When we talk about our history, we have to pay due homage to our ancestors, to our humble people, to ordinary men and women, and to the resilience of our civilization.

And today we see the glorious revival of Somnath. Since independence we have only two such examples: one is Ayodhya and the other is Somnath. But so much was lost, and it has taken so much time for even a little revival to take place. It is a wounded civilization, a battered civilization — but it is taking time to recover. Thank you.

 

PANELIST

Heeraman Tiwari

Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University*

THE MODERATOR

[Moderator’s remarks following Dr. Jain’s address:] Like I said earlier, having travelled to the site, it is amazing that you still see the peepal tree at the temple — the place where, they say, Lord Krishna took his last breath. The temple is really small, yet it draws a huge pilgrimage. And I think, as Dr. Jain said, it is the common people who have helped this civilization continue and revive itself every time it has encountered some sort of destruction.

Dr. Jain, you spoke about the chapter on [a chapter title is unclear] and the resistance of the topmost brass in Delhi to seeing this temple resurrected — two very important chapters. Now I come to my panel discussion, and to my first panelist, [introduced as] a professor at a central university [the university’s name is garbled in the recording], who also serves as a dean. His scholarship spans Sanskrit language and literature, Indian philosophy and intellectual history. He holds a PhD from the University of Delhi and a DPhil from the University of Oxford.

Attribution note: this speaker is placed here as Heeraman Tiwari, by elimination from the event poster (the other two panelists are identified by name later in the recording). The introduction read out in the recording describes a Sanskrit and Indian-philosophy scholar, whereas the poster lists Prof. Tiwari at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU. Please verify.

“We in India should delight in the magnificent story of the repeated resurrections of a sacred Somnath.”

Thank you very much for the very kind introduction. Rami, to you and to your Foundation, I am grateful for this honour of being part of this celebration. My friends Côme and Himanshu — and, of course, the heroine of this evening, Professor Meenakshi Jain — what an honour to be here, to be able to speak a few words about the book. [A remark about having prepared a written text rather than rambling is unclear.]

Rarely, very rarely, do you get a writer who has the courage and scholarly wisdom to swim against the current. I am speaking, of course, about Professor Meenakshi Jain, historian of India, who, well before scripting this beautiful volume on Somnath, had written several books which not only challenged the cozy, well-settled historiography of India’s story — our story, the vestiges of our past, our memory — but also caused much anguish to those known as the “eminent historians” of India.

These historians, without doubt, wrote in lyrical prose the fate of Indian history, the myriad facets of the India that was, and indeed of India as a civilization. The power of their historiography was so compelling, and the narration so convincing, that it would have been almost impossible not to be persuaded by their account of India’s [word unclear] past.

Then comes Professor Meenakshi Jain, a historian without any friends around her, who began to gaze at some gaping cracks in the well-plastered fort of Indian historiography and the narrative it had built for all of us for decades. Gradually and surely she began to chisel away the layers of clever coating, laying bare the sound archival, archaeological and inscriptional evidence that had been staring at us. [The following sentence is unclear in the recording.]

Professor Jain dismantled certain myths of Indian history, writing volume after volume — like the story of Ayodhya’s Ramlala, who is now fully seated in his place of birth. In his life, Lord Rama was exiled by his father for only fourteen years. But a thousand years later, he was again made homeless by a foreign invader. And somehow, as if we Indians too felt resigned to our fate, Lord Rama remained exiled for nearly five hundred years. Five hundred years is a long time for any expulsion, any punishment. Our history books did give us that impression.

The fight for our history, India’s history, appeared perilous given the arguments our historians had presented before us. There were two struggles: the court battle, and the battle over the history and the narrative about this wounding event. Those who never wanted to give up their faith in our invincible civilization and culture experienced a torment — a torment in silence. Professor Jain, on the other hand, like our poet [name unclear], converted that tormented history into historical truth, shloka after shloka.

I am quoting here from the Valmiki Ramayana. Valmiki announced to the world that whatever he was writing, in the silence of his torment, was nothing but the truth. Whatever you write in the silence of torment has to be true. And, not for nothing, did Sumitranandan Pant say [the couplet is garbled in the recording; restored here from the well-known verse]:

Viyogi hoga pehla kavi, aah se upja hoga gaan;
Umadkar aankhon se chupchaap, bahi hogi kavita anjaan.

It took five hundred years for someone like Professor Meenakshi Jain to tell us the truth. Just like the invincibility of her account of Ramlala, Professor Jain’s book on Somnath has proved to be as invincible as Lord Somnath himself [transcribed “as miserable”]. [A quotation attributed to an Acharya, on every pebble of Bharat reflecting Shankar, is garbled and its attribution unclear.] Our Somnath is undefeatable, as indeed has been the belief of those who kept on rebuilding the herald of Shiva, the invincible Somnath, as she has just explained. On that same hallowed ground, each time, the invaders who could not tolerate our faith in Shiva demolished it, and looted it.

• • • RECORDING SEGMENT BREAK • • •

…the thousand-year story of Somnath, which Professor Meenakshi poignantly calls a saga of millennia. I like the subtitle perhaps more than the main title. It is a concise history of India’s struggle for truth. [A Sanskrit phrase, transcribed “anyatha, na anyatha”, is unclear.]

The book is based on sound sources, secure in the geography of Prabhaskshetra, and it traces meticulously the saga of many destructions and an equal number of reconstructions. While the rest of the world marvels at the blissful story of a single resurrection — a sacred resurrection of two thousand years ago — we in India should delight in the magnificent story of the repeated resurrections of a sacred Somnath.

Through her book, Professor Meenakshi forces the reader to sit at an unlit window and watch the celebration of Somnath with a thousand-year-long fireworks of evidence. This book has successfully conquered the three kālas [transcribed “Gita Ratakrishna”] — as Lord Shiva himself is known to us in the sources and stories: the ancient, the medieval and the modern. So the book is not about modern India, and it is not about medieval India. It is about India, if you can date it — if you dare to date it, in my opinion. That is why I say that it conquers these three times.

[A sentence on how Mahmud of Ghazni was drawn to the antiquity of Shiva and the strength of the people of India is garbled.] People often argue, and have been arguing, that the temple was plundered because of greed for wealth. I don’t believe so. Somnath had become the superglue of the people of this land — she herself said so. And in the eleventh century, the pinnacle of the Somnath temple, like the Himalaya, was piercing the sky. The greed of Ghazni was not only for the wealth and prosperity of the Somnath temple. His jealousy of, and hatred for, the invincible faith in Shiva was crushing him. That is my belief.

This desecration and sacking of Somnath by Mahmud of Ghazni is the central theme of this book, around which Professor Jain weaves this moving story, with sound support from inscriptional and textual evidence.

And then, in the twentieth century, the passion of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel [transcribed “Sardar Bhagavatpate”] — and here too I am using the term “passion” — for another resurrection. His vow to rebuild Somnath, a commitment to the cause [the surrounding phrase is unclear]. Sardar Patel took the vow with the waters of the sea in his palms — the sea whose waves had been, for a thousand years, throbbing at the base of the original Somnath temple, as if to ring in our ears that Shiva is invincible. Even the waters around India are saying that, in my opinion, as indeed is the faith of this devotee.

The invader had thought that by destroying the temple of Somnath he was going to crush the faith of the Indians. Perhaps he had not read the story of Arjuna in the Mahabharata, who went to the Himalayas to meet the Lord, only to discover that the Himalaya itself was looking at him, and at the rest of the world, the way Shiva does. And I am not merely making up a story. I am quoting a seventh-century Indian poet, Bharavi [transcribed “Dharmi”], who retold the story in the Kirātārjunīya.

Let me recite that beautiful verse; I will summarize it in two sentences. I say that Mahmud [transcribed “Ghazali”], or anybody who wanted to sack or destroy our Somnath, had not been told this story. The dazzling snow-capped peaks of the Himalaya appeared to Arjuna as the face of Shiva. [The Sanskrit verse is too garbled in the recording to reconstruct.] Shiva is laughing, destroying the darkness.

Nor had Mahmud heard of the devotion of Indians, who make of their own body, as Shiva did, a temple: their legs become the pillars, their body the garbhagriha, the sanctum sanctorum, and their heads the golden finial. How can Shiva not remain invincible in the ocean of such devotion? [Transcribed “ocean of such a cave”.] Thank you.

 

PANELIST

Himanshu Roy

Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

THE MODERATOR

[Moderator:] He said: we did not forsake our Gods, just as our Gods did not forsake us. And on that note I move to my next panelist, Professor Himanshu Roy [transcribed “Professor Imam Shukla”], a professor at the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. His areas of specialization include political thought and political theory. He has been teaching since 1988.

“Gandhi advised that not a single penny should be spent from the Government of India; the contribution should come from the public.”

Professor, fellow panelists, [an unclear salutation] — thank you for this invitation. A couple of things. I find this book to be the best written on Somnath. [A passage comparing it with other books on Somnath, including, it seems, K. M. Munshi’s Somnath: The Shrine Eternal, is garbled.] I will pick up from the book, Chapter 10, on Nehru’s position. Let me read it out.

“The decision that was taken on the reconstruction of Somnath temple: the condition of the temple was such that it was not for renovation. They had thought so initially, but the old structure was pulled down and, at a certain distance, a new structure was erected. The decision was taken by Patel in consultation with N. V. Gadgil [transcribed “V. M. Garg”; probably N. V. Gadgil] and the local residents of the area.

“Patel then apprised Mahatma Gandhi of the decision, when he met him sixteen days later. Gandhi advised him that, for the trust, not a single penny should be spent from the Government of India; the contribution should come from the public, and it would be the trust that would look into the reconstruction of the Somnath temple.” This takes place around 1949 [as stated]. The details I can skip, for those who are interested; my focus will be different.

In the cabinet meetings, all kinds of decisions were taken following Mahatma Gandhi’s suggestions. Archaeology, town planning, the Central Public Works Department, the Director-General of Archaeology, the Chief Engineer of the Saurashtra Government, and two architects — masters, the Sompuras, who were experts in temple design — were brought into the trust. The cabinet meetings were presided over by [name unclear; transcribed “Pradeep Menon”]. This is around 1949 and subsequent years.

Because Gandhi had given his approval, and Patel, of course, was the leader, the work moved ahead. And then, within a short span of a few months, Gandhi died. Subsequently, Patel died on 15 December 1950 [transcribed “by 1951, 15 December, 1927”].

[A passage of stage chatter is omitted.] Nehru’s objection, again I am quoting him, was “wasteful [transcribed “restful”] expenditure at a time of crisis”, and he gives all kinds of reasons. For example, Rs. 24,92,000 was spent on the reconstruction of the temple, and the whole of it came from the public. Now, what was the idea at the outset? The idea was renovation. But when the different departments and experts went there, they felt that the existing structure needed to be pulled down, the location shifted, and a new temple constructed. This is what they felt. And so the existing ruins were pulled down on 8 May 1950 — Patel was alive at that time — and a new structure, slightly away from the old location, began to be constructed from 19 October 1950. [A sentence about the reconstruction period is unclear.] This is how we find that the construction began.

Why did he suddenly react like this after the death of Patel? That, to me, speaks to things — the double face of Nehru. As a political theorist, I feel it this way. Number two: appeasement. Despite Patel’s encouragement, he had not recognized [the object of “recognize” is unclear]. And Patel had told him — I am reading out what Patel wrote to Nehru in a letter — that India’s policies should not, in their formulation, be influenced by internal and external factors. The Gulf factor, the Israel factor and the local factor were influencing this policy of appeasement — despite the fact that [the next phrase, transcribed “the Ashraf”, is unclear] were instrumental in partitioning India.

Now let me read out something else. In 1958, Nehru gave an interview to the BBC’s Panorama, and the interviewer was a British BBC correspondent, Markham [surname unclear]. After the interview, he wrote — I am quoting him — of “a man of egos and mimicry” [reading uncertain], “the last viceroy rather than the first leader of liberated India.” Nehru, in response, on 6 May 1964, said that what Markham had said was not correct, and he replied to Galbraith [the details of this exchange are unclear]. And this is connected, because it speaks to the attitude and the reflection. That was secularism and the double face. And therefore all this historical casting continues until the Ram temple was constructed. And we have seen the political consequences of the dynasty. So I stop here. Thank you very much.

 

PANELIST

Côme Carpentier

Distinguished Fellow, India Foundation

THE MODERATOR

[Moderator:] Thank you, Professor Roy. It almost makes us feel that we are diving into his strong words. [The rest of the sentence is unclear.] But now, coming to our very own Côme Carpentier [transcribed “Dr. Rohan Patel”]. He is a Distinguished Fellow with our Foundation and has served, since 2003, as the convener of the International Editorial Board of World Affairs, a journal. He has commented on international history and other subjects, and he is really one in the great line of historians [names unclear in the recording]. He brings to light a lot of things that we may not have noticed sufficiently.

“You cannot say that India was literally sunk in an abyss of mythological darkness.”

One thing that strikes you is that, despite all the comments about Indian history being very imprecise and sometimes almost non-existent, you do find in this book a very coherent — sometimes, I would say, fragmentary, but factual — account of the succession of dynasties and kings. Even though, of course, we don’t know many of their actions, you cannot say that India was literally sunk in an abyss of mythological darkness, as some Western and even Indian analysts have sometimes alleged.

Because the fact is that there was a very strong sense not only of who had ruled where, but also of where those monarchs had been, what territories they had conquered and what they had lost at other times. Clearly, India in that particular age [the opening of the period named is unclear; transcribed “from the days of Mahatma Gandhi”] to, you might say, the British Raj — and even under the British Raj — retained a typically feudal structure. It was like Germany in Europe until 1870, pretty much, and even before: a mosaic of states, overlapping and contesting each other continuously over tax collection, over glory, in order to conquer another state and assert greatness. This went on for centuries. We find the same in all feudal polities, and it largely explains why India was conquered and confronted with so many foreign invaders.

Number one, some of the invaders did not consider themselves foreign; they considered themselves of another religion, which was a bit different. Otherwise, if you look at the way in which Indian kings fought each other, you understand why it was very difficult to form a unified response to an invasion: there were paramount considerations to do with the safety of the state, which was often relatively small and fragile, because the borders changed rather fast.

That is how you see the succession of dynasties in the area that concerns this book — Saurashtra. Right from the days of Shri Krishna, when the Vrishnis, part of the Yadavas, went there and set up a kingdom to escape the oppression and persecution they had suffered under Kamsa and [transcribed “Saraswata”; probably Jarasandha]. So you see how the expansion of what you might call the Vedic people was caused partly by the desire to create new kingdoms and expand to new lands, but also by the fact that they had to make room for themselves by leaving the places where they had been living, sometimes for centuries. You find that in the Mahabharata, and clearly throughout the Puranas. That explains why there is a seamless transition from ancient India — what you might even call heroic India — into the historic period. And the historic period is where we find the invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni.

Then you also understand the context in which Mahmud, being a Turk — already a great invader and plunderer — was raised, in that tradition of the princes of Central Asia, who were at once very cruel and deliberate in their destruction, but also very fond of poetry, music and civilization, and always kept a court of bards, historians and scientists around them. My distinguished colleague [name unclear in the recording] talked about Mahmud’s possible motivations. But, again, it is part of the culture of that particular civilization, of a people who go on raids throughout the Middle East [a clause about distributing spoils to soldiers and building a more opulent kingdom is partly unclear].

And, of course, there are rewards for it. One: if you destroy idols, you get the grace of the only God, who is of course formless and does not tolerate false gods. And then you also get a distinction from the Caliph, and Mahmud was, I believe, the first one in Afghanistan to be made a Sultan. So you can see the most complex combination — as always in human affairs — of what we now call religious fanaticism and sheer political and economic interest, because many kingdoms could not support themselves if they did not bring in enough wealth from outside. So you have a constant fight for tribute and for aggrandizing your possessions.

And that lasts right until the period evoked in great detail by Dr. Jain, when she talks about the respective positions of the various princes of Saurashtra and Gujarat, and in particular the Gaekwads of Baroda, who had first been part of the Maratha Confederacy and then ended up as, so to speak, the overlords of Gujarat. Within their province, and to a certain extent under their authority, you have the Muslim Nawabship of Junagadh. That explains the great confusion: these states were so parcelled out that every state had a piece of another state inside its territory. The administration must have been an absolute nightmare, and it is quite amazing that the British were able to play all these people against each other and somehow keep their rule for a good number of years.

An Arab deity and the origin of Somnath

There are of course many other interesting details. One I want to allude to — because I am most interested in the historical — is that some reports say the reason Mahmud was so attracted to, you might say obsessed with, that particular temple is that there was an Arab deity, Manat, who had been worshipped in Mecca until the Prophet Muhammad declared that these three goddesses, apparently icons carved out of black stones, had to be destroyed. Apparently Manat was the one of the three that was not destroyed and was taken to Somnath. That, of course, would be an easy justification: “I still have to get to that idol, because it was the Prophet’s decision and desire that this idol should not be worshipped.”

And that brings you back to the very origin of Somnath. Gujarat, and particularly Saurashtra, is geographically close to the empire of Iran. For a long time the kings in part of Gujarat were called Kshatrapas, because they carried the Persian title of governor — satrap. And yet there is a lot in common between the Avestan religion and the Vedic religion. You know that Soma is Haoma, and that it is still worshipped by the Parsis, the Mazdeans. It survived even under Muslim rule in Iran. For example, Yazata — Haoma, who is Soma — is an Avestan, and therefore Zoroastrian, deity, and it is with this Yazata Haoma that you perform the ritual called Yasna in Iran, which is the Yajna of the Vedas, although there are certain differences that have emerged over time.

But you still have that commonality, and Yasna has given rise to the name Yazd [reading uncertain], which is used throughout the Muslim world. Therefore they carry, even without knowing it, a Persian-Vedic name. And you see, for example, that if you look at Humayun, he was named after Homa — which means Soma — and he regarded himself primarily as an astrologer. So, essentially, his primary personal religion, you might say, was astrology. So you can see the continuity of the pre-Humayun… [The recording ends mid-sentence here; the transcription tool truncated the file.]

 

Editor’s Notes

Attribution

First panelist. Placed as Heeraman Tiwari by elimination from the poster. The introduction read out in the recording (Sanskrit language and literature, Indian philosophy, DPhil Oxford) does not obviously match the poster’s listing (Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU). Please confirm.

Names restored from the poster. “Imam Shukla” → Himanshu Roy; “Dr. Rohan Patel” → Côme Carpentier; “Professor Sajjad”, “Aminatu Jain”, “Dr. Glenn”, “Rafiqa Jain” → Dr. Meenakshi Jain. The moderator is Rami Niranjan Desai.

Corrections and unclear passages

Evident transcription slips corrected (each is flagged in the text where it occurs): Mahmud of Ghazni (“Ghazali”, “Mehboob Basanti”); Al-Biruni (“Alchemony”); Bharavi and the Kirātārjunīya (“Dharmi”, “Kirata Huniya”); Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (“Bhagavatpate”); K. M. Munshi (“K.M. Rishi”); Sher Khan Babi (“Sher Khan Gandhi”); D. C. Sircar (“D.C. Sarkar”); the Veraval inscription (“Neeravani”).

Facts corrected from context. Sardar Patel died on 15 December 1950 (the recording gives “1951 … 1927”). Junagadh’s declaration on 15 August 1947 was an accession to Pakistan (the recording says “India has ceded to Pakistan”). The temple destroyed by Mahmud was Mularaja’s (the recording says “destroyed by Moolraj”).

Passages that could not be reconstructed are marked in italics within square brackets and have not been guessed at. Where a probable reading is offered (for example, the Maitrakas of Vallabhi, N. V. Gadgil, Jarasandha), it is labelled as such.

Scope and approach

What this edition includes. The opening of the recording is cut off mid-sentence; there is one break between the two transcript files during the first panelist’s talk; and the recording ends mid-sentence during Côme Carpentier’s talk. The question-and-answer session scheduled for 7 pm is not included. A few lines of stage chatter have been omitted.

Editing approach. Filler words, repetitions and obvious speech-recognition errors have been cleaned for readability; the speakers’ arguments and claims are reproduced as spoken and have not been independently fact-checked. Statements, interpretations and political characterizations are the speakers’ own.

 

Book Release cum Discussion The Dragon, The Elephant and The Emerging World Order & India and China: Civilisational States in a Fragmented World

Book Release cum Discussion

The Dragon, The Elephant and The Emerging World Order

&

India and China: Civilisational States in a Fragmented World

 

EventBook Release cum Discussion
Date28 September
OrganiserIndia Foundation
Books ReleasedThe Dragon, The Elephant and The Emerging World Order

India and China: Civilisational States in a Fragmented World

Released byShri Harsh Vardhan Shringla, former Foreign Secretary and Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha)
EditorCapt Alok Bansal, Executive Vice President, India Foundation
DiscussantsAmbassador Jaideep Mazumdar

Prof Alka Acharya

Prof Happymon Jacob

ModeratorMs Rami Desai, Distinguished Fellow, India Foundation

 

Overview

On 28 September, India Foundation released an edited volume comprising two books defining the India-China relationship: The Dragon, The Elephant and The Emerging World Order and India and China: Civilisational States in a Fragmented World. Shri Harsh Vardhan Shringla, former Foreign Secretary and now a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, released the books. The book launch was followed by a book discussion on the subject, moderated by Ms Rami Desai, Distinguished Fellow, India Foundation.

The discussion was led by the Editor of both the books, Capt Alok Bansal, Executive Vice President, India Foundation. The discussants were Ambassador Jaideep Mazumdar, Prof Alka Acharya and Prof Happymon Jacob.

Release Address

Shri Harsh Vardhan Shringla  | MP (Rajya Sabha) and former Foreign Secretary

I am delighted to share a few broad thoughts with you before our eminent panel delves into a detailed discussion of these two important publications on the India-China relationship. The release of these two volumes comes at a pivotal moment in our bilateral relations. We are at a critical juncture when both nations must step back and re-evaluate where the relationship stands.

The two volumes address distinct yet complementary aspects of the bilateral equation:

  • The Emerging Nations Perspective: Examining the relationship through the lens of contemporary global power dynamics.
  • The Civilisational Perspective: Analysing the long-term historical and cultural ties linking the two nations.

As highlighted in the publications, it is vital to remember that long before either India or China became modern nation-states, our intrepid traders, monks, and voyagers laid the foundations for peaceful, mutually enriching exchanges. At one point, our two civilisations together accounted for more than half of global GDP. This interaction was not limited to commerce; it was a profound exchange of ideas. On a personal note, my parents named me after King Harshavardhana, the great 7th-century ruler of Northern India. During his reign, the Chinese scholar Xuanzang visited India and met King Harsha, who gave him priceless Buddhist texts to take back to China.

Similarly, coming from a region near Kalimpong in the Darjeeling district, I am acutely aware of the historical significance of trans-Himalayan trade. Kalimpong was a bustling hub for border trade between India and Tibet for centuries. It is encouraging to see that trade across border passes such as Nathu La has resumed, reviving a centuries-old tradition of exchanging both goods and ideas.

Framing India and China as “civilisation states in a fragmented world” is apt. It captures the depth of the relationship—its endurance, its demands, and, inevitably, its occasional friction. Unlike governments, civilisations think in centuries rather than 24-hour news cycles. I broadly agree that a relationship grounded in civilisational depth has the resilience to absorb strategic competition without being consumed by it.

So, where do we stand today? As Foreign Secretary during the 2020 Galwan border standoff, I witnessed firsthand the acute challenges along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Through sustained military and diplomatic efforts, we achieved a level of disengagement that enabled high-level dialogue to resume. Since then, we have seen pivotal interactions: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with President Xi Jinping in Kazan, followed by bilateral engagements and high-level summits.

Furthermore, the 25th round of Special Representative talks on the boundary question produced an eight-point consensus, including a commitment to achieve an early and substantive outcome on boundary delimitation. We have also achieved important practical successes:

  • The resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra.
  • The restoration of direct commercial flights.
  • The reopening of selected border trade routes.

These may seem modest, but they are vital because they rebuild the relationship from the ground up rather than from the top down.

The Government of India’s position, reiterated by the Prime Minister, rests firmly on three pillars: Mutual Respect, Mutual Sensitivity, and Mutual Interest. The border question must be placed in its appropriate context within the broader bilateral matrix:

  • It cannot be allowed to hold the entire bilateral agenda hostage.
  • Nor can it be treated as fully resolved before a final agreement is reached.

Progress on boundary delimitation and border management should proceed in tandem with cooperation in other domains, rather than serving as an absolute precondition. We must calibrate our approach carefully—neither jumping the gun nor obstructing constructive progress.

On the economic front, bilateral trade has surpassed $150 billion. However, the widening trade deficit—now over $112 billion—remains a serious structural concern. Although Indian exports to China have grown in recent quarters, an unaddressed imbalance of this magnitude is increasingly unsustainable. During their bilateral meetings, Prime Minister Modi and President Xi agreed to address structural trade imbalances, ensure predictable market access, and resolve supply-chain bottlenecks. Narrowing this gap is essential for long-term stability.

Beyond traditional diplomacy, there are several key sectors in which both nations can foster constructive engagement:

  • Artificial Intelligence & Frontier Tech Governance
  • Clean Energy Transition & Energy Security
  • Public Health Collaboration
  • Multilateral & Global South Advocacy (within frameworks like the G20, BRICS, and space exploration)
  • Hydrological Data Sharing (particularly concerning transboundary rivers like the Brahmaputra/Yarlung Tsangpo)

Technical cooperation in areas like hydrology builds genuine practical trust—something that political statements alone cannot accomplish.

Prime Minister Modi has observed that India-China dialogue and cooperation are essential to global stability, prosperity, and peace. Similarly, when President Xi Jinping visited India, he noted that cooperation between our two nations benefits not only our people but also Asia and the world at large. India continues to test this proposition in practice, rather than merely accepting it as a theoretical principle.

To close with a timeless reflection:

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

India and China have spent decades coming together and keeping together. We now need to work together effectively. That effort will define the 21st century. Both nations have deliberately chosen to invest in stabilising this relationship. If sustained and reciprocated, that choice will determine whether we remain caught in a fragmented global order or help build a genuinely cooperative one.

I once again congratulate the editors and contributors for bringing scholarly rigour to a narrative too often dominated by episodic headlines. I am confident this work will inform a policy towards China that is grounded, patient, and clear.

Thank you very much.

Editor’s Remarks

Capt Alok Bansal  |  Executive Vice President, India Foundation

The trajectory of India-China relations will arguably define the 21st century. The Westphalian model of the nation-state—premised on rigid borders, homogeneous national identities, and fixed institutional structures—is yielding to a shifting global order. As the geopolitical and economic centre of gravity moves eastwards, fragmentation across the globe is giving rise to a new multipolar reality.

Both India and China are not merely modern nation-states; they are civilisational states whose traditions far predate Westphalian governance. However, their foundational political philosophies differ sharply:

  • India’s Ethos: Shaped by Vedic philosophy and cultural pluralism, India seeks to be a “friend to the world” (Vishwamitra) and a benign, moral force (Vishwaguru). India’s unity has long been sustained by a shared cultural geography and philosophical inclusivity, not centralised coercion. Today, this is evident in a vibrant democracy that champions the Global South, as shown by India’s leadership in including the African Union in the G20—a move acknowledged even by our Chinese contributors.
  • China’s Ethos: China’s civilisational identity is tied to a centralised, monolithic tradition of statehood shaped by Confucian ethics and the historical concept of Tianxia (“All Under Heaven”). The Chinese state views itself as the primary custodian of cultural and social harmony.

While both nations now seek to articulate the aspirations of the Global South, these differing civilisational impulses create distinct approaches to global governance. This publication reflects these dual perspectives across 36 chapters—18 by Indian scholars and 18 by Chinese scholars. Originally conceived as a single book, it was split into two volumes to accommodate its scope. For an Indian audience, engaging with the Chinese perspectives in these pages is crucial. Understanding how Chinese scholars view bilateral issues—including where they acknowledge Indian leadership and where their assessments diverge—is essential to moving beyond fixed mindsets. The same holds for the international community: examining both viewpoints side by side reveals the precise gaps that diplomacy must bridge.

For thousands of years, India and China coexisted in relative harmony, separated by the Himalayas. The mountains allowed the flow of ideas and trade while preventing the movement of large armies. Modern technology has breached that physical barrier, bringing long-standing boundary disputes to the fore. While these border issues may not be resolved in the near future, managing them responsibly remains the immediate priority.

Furthermore, we must account for regional dynamics. Shifts in India-China relations send ripples across neighbouring states. Just as Western powers monitor Beijing-New Delhi dynamics, smaller neighbours in South Asia—accustomed to balancing between both giants—also recalibrate their positions whenever India and China draw closer. In an era increasingly defined by transactional nationalism, India and China must develop a strategy for coexistence and for shaping a more equitable, multipolar world order. Grounding our understanding in deep civilisational analysis, rather than reactive headlines, is the first step towards that goal.

Panel Discussion

Ambassador Jaideep Mazumdar

For more than five years, the world’s two most populous nations and fastest-growing economies coexisted without a single direct commercial flight between them. During the same period, Indian flight connections to Singapore expanded to more than 200 per week, and to Vietnam to more than 120 per week. This context explains why even a modest thaw in India-China relations has sparked cautious euphoria in India—particularly in the wake of recent geopolitical friction with traditional partners.

After four years of deep mistrust following the 2020 border standoff, “cooperation” has returned to the bilateral lexicon. However, it is revealing that an external shock to the international system was required to restart direct dialogue. While diplomatic practitioners tend towards scepticism, the scholarly contributions in The Dragon, The Elephant and The Emerging World Order reflect a genuine search for common ground.

The academic contributions offer valuable insights into the bilateral dynamic:

  • Absence of Rancour: Unlike the sharp rhetoric often seen on mainstream and social media, the contributions maintain a constructive, measured tone. Scholars from both sides independently reach similar conclusions about their respective regional roles across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.
  • Limits of Cooperation: While convergence exists, cooperation on dual-use technologies—such as Artificial Intelligence, space, and cybersecurity—remains a significant challenge given their inherent national security implications.
  • Differing Perspectives on Multipolarity: Shared concepts often obscure distinct strategic priorities. For example, Chinese scholars often portray Beijing as the primary champion of global governance while viewing India merely as a supporting stakeholder.

The popular narrative that India and China are poised strictly between “competition and cooperation” requires critical examination. True competition requires parity across key domains. India pursues its own strategic space and core national interests; when those interests conflict with Beijing’s actions, it represents a divergence of worldviews rather than head-to-head competition. External shifts—such as Western policy unpredictability—have created space for tactical alignment. However, the fundamental takeaway for Beijing should be that India remains strictly non-aligned, cooperating with partners based on security and economic well-being.

Despite ongoing diplomatic engagements, the fundamental structural pressures shaping the relationship remain unchanged. China continues to hold significant strategic levers along the shared border, within India’s immediate neighbourhood, through targeted supply-chain disruptions, and via massive bilateral trade surpluses. None of these leverage points has disappeared, nor has Beijing shown any incentive to forgo them. Meanwhile, India is still building the counter-leverage needed to deter their potential use.

Professor Zhang Yadong’s characterisation of the current trajectory as a “cold peace”—the absence of hot conflict—is hardly a permanent or satisfactory state. While China advocates a multipolar global order, it remains doubtful whether Beijing is willing to accept a multipolar Asia. As a civilisational state, India cannot accept a hierarchical regional order. Rebuilding long-term stability requires recognising these structural realities with clarity, patience, and realistic expectations.

Prof Alka Acharya

As a lifelong researcher and observer of India-China relations—a field often shaped by the political vicissitudes of the bilateral relationship—I am delighted to see these two volumes brought to fruition. Co-edited by scholars from both nations and featuring an equal number of contributions from Indian and Chinese authors, this effort provides a critical platform for exploring convergences, understanding divergences, and building a corpus of literature that addresses our mutual knowledge deficit. For most people in India, China remains a black hole. Bridging this gap is essential if our two nations are to shape the 21st century responsibly.

In diplomatic discourse and joint summit declarations, leaders routinely invoke the phrase “two great civilisational powers.” Yet applying a civilisational category of analysis differs fundamentally from examining realpolitik, power plays, and geopolitical manoeuvres. While the civilisational concept is ancient, its application to post-independence and post-liberation Sino-Indian relations is relatively recent.

Over the past three to four decades, Indian scholarship explicitly applying a civilisational lens to China has been scarce. By contrast, Chinese scholars have engaged with this paradigm far more extensively. Western intellectual history often grounds civilisational theory in cultural conflict, hierarchy, and imperialist notions of superiority. By contrast, Asian scholars—such as Professor Tan Chung—have long argued that civilisations do not clash. Instead, historical India-China interactions reflect a process of cross-fertilisation and mutual enrichment.

A key distinction must be drawn between Western geopolitical frameworks and an Asian geo-civilisational framework:

  • Geopolitical Framework: Its foundational premise is that it is driven by national interest, resource monopolisation, consumerism, and spatial expansion. It views diversity as hierarchical and cultural differences through the lens of dominance and conflict.
  • Geo-civilisational Framework: It is premised on the conceptual unity of the world and of human fulfilment. It views diversity as integrative and emphasises coexistence, composite culture, and cross-pollination.

While both volumes offer valuable insights into civilisational heritage—referencing concepts such as Tianxia and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam—a persistent analytical challenge remains. Too often, scholarship celebrates civilisational glory in the abstract, then analyses contemporary bilateral relations in isolation from those philosophical underpinnings. The real academic task is not merely to acknowledge that India and China are ancient civilisations, but to systematically show how these civilisational frameworks shape foreign policy, the exercise of power, and neighbourly engagement today. Moving from grand civilisational rhetoric to practical policy application remains the central hurdle for scholars on both sides.

Prof Happymon Jacob

As global power shifts eastward, the fundamental question facing international relations is not merely that power is shifting, but in whose favour it is shifting. While both India and China are proud civilisation states, history shows that ancient civilisations living side by side do not automatically coexist in harmony. Civilisations, like states, have historically been driven by power, hierarchy, interest, and conflict.

Applying Mao Zedong’s framework from his 1937 treatise On Contradiction, foreign policy requires identifying a nation’s primary contradiction—its principal strategic challenge—and distinguishing it from secondary derivative issues.

For India, China is the primary contradiction. Everything else in Indian grand strategy is secondary or derivative:

  • The Pakistan Factor: The security challenge along India’s western border is largely derivative of the threat from China. Beijing actively leverages Pakistan to keep India tied down in South Asia, enabling China to expand its footprint in India’s regional backyard.
  • The U.S. Dynamic: While Washington presents its own set of policy challenges, the United States is not India’s primary contradiction. Rather, the U.S. is a critical balancing partner that India can utilise to manage its primary challenge from Beijing, without entering a formal military alliance.

Conversely, Beijing regards its rivalry with the United States as its primary strategic axis. Consequently, Chinese scholars and policymakers assess the Sino-Indian relationship almost entirely through the lens of their competition with Washington.

When evaluating whether China helps or hampers India’s core national objectives, the structural friction becomes clear:

  • A Multipolar Asia: India seeks a pole position in a multipolar Asia, while China resists sharing regional leadership.
  • Territorial Integrity: China actively hampers India’s desire for a settled border by exploiting ambiguity over the LAC to maintain strategic pressure.
  • Regional Primacy: Beijing actively challenges and erodes India’s traditional primacy in South Asia.
  • Global Governance Autonomy: China consistently blocks India’s aspirations to secure permanent membership of the UN Security Council and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
  • Industrial Sovereignty: India’s critical import dependencies on China create structural vulnerabilities across manufacturing and supply chains.
  • Global South Leadership: Rather than partnering with New Delhi, China seeks to displace India as the Global South’s leading voice.
  • Western Governance Reform: While both nations advocate reform of Western-dominated institutions, Beijing works within groupings such as BRICS and the SCO to advance its own hierarchy rather than equal partnership.
  • Strategic Autonomy: Beijing favours India’s distance from Washington purely because it weakens India’s leverage, not because it seeks a genuine partnership with New Delhi.

Strategic autonomy cannot be sustained by rhetoric alone; it requires internal capability. India’s current strategic autonomy is constrained by four key structural dependencies: manufacturing dependence on China, technological reliance on the West, defence hardware ties with Russia, and exposure to regional security risks.

Furthermore, while some scholars argue that Westphalian nation-states are giving way to civilisational states, these two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Even as civilisational states, India and China must operate within the hard realities of power politics. China functions as a revisionist power, masquerading as a reformist one, seeking to build an Asian order centred on Beijing.

The true test of India-China relations will not be found in joint summit declarations at BRICS or the SCO, but along the Line of Actual Control. A strategy towards China must be grounded in hard-nosed realism—acknowledging the strategic competition for what it is, utilising external balance to protect Indian interests, and ensuring that civilisational rhetoric does not obscure geopolitical reality.

 

The Mecca Pact and Its Implications for the Region

Table of Contents

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………….. 1
Opening Remarks: Capt Alok Bansal ………………………………………………….. 1
Amb Sanjay Acharya ……………………………………………………………………….. 2

The Strategic Alignment of the Signatories …………………………………………………………………… 2
Precedents and Structural Dynamics …………………………………………………………………………… 3
Catalysts for the Alliance ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
Strategic Implications for India ………………………………………………………………………………….. 3

Dr Shalini Chawla …………………………………………………………………………… 4

Key Takeaways and Strategic Realities ………………………………………………………………………… 5

Lt Gen Raj Shukla …………………………………………………………………………… 6

Core Drivers and Protagonists ……………………………………………………………………………………. 6
Near-Term Realities vs. Techno-Industrial Risks ………………………………………………………….. 7
Strategic Imperatives for India……………………………………………………………………………………. 7

 

Introduction

A panel discussion was held at the India Habitat Centre on 8 September 2026 on the Mecca Pact and Its Implications for the Region. The discussants were as follows:

  • Amb Sanjay Acharya: former Indian Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt and the Arab League.
  • Dr Shalini Chawla: Distinguished Fellow, CAPSS.
  • Lt Gen Raj Shukla: Member, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and former GOC-in-C ARTRAC.
  • Capt Alok Bansal: Executive Vice President, India Foundation, moderated the discussion.

Opening Remarks: Capt Alok Bansal

Ongoing regional dynamics and shifting security paradigms in West Asia have brought us to a critical juncture. This panel discussion stems from a fundamental realisation: the prolonged conflict in the Gulf has made it clear that Gulf nations can no longer rely solely on the United States for regional security. Far from ensuring stability, a heavy foreign military presence has often exacerbated conflict and destruction. Conversely, recent diplomatic interventions—such as direct phone calls between Islamabad and Tehran—have demonstrated a tangible reduction in direct strikes on Saudi targets. This strategic shift has brought these key regional actors together.

While the Mecca Pact primarily focuses on West Asia, its implications extend far beyond the region. The pact introduces a collective defence framework—a mechanism under which an attack on one member state is treated as an attack on all. Historically, such arrangements carry significant geopolitical weight. During the conflicts of 1961 and 1965, Pakistan remained aligned with the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and eventually left the alliance after 1971, when its geographical and strategic alignment shifted. Understanding this history is vital as we evaluate today’s emerging security architecture.

For India, the strategic calculus of the Mecca Pact demands serious analysis:

  • Regional Leverage and Ground Realities: Pakistan shares a land border with Iran and possesses conventional force-deployment capabilities that distant external powers lack. Following high-level discussions between Islamabad and Tehran, direct attacks on Saudi Arabia declined notably, even as proxy engagements and asymmetric warfare persist across the Kingdom.
  • Overlapping Conflict Spheres: The involvement of nations with complex regional disputes—such as Turkey’s ongoing issues in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean— raises critical questions about how collective defence commitments might be applied across different maritime zones, from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
  • Impact on Maritime Transit and Trade: A key strategic concern is whether a future localised conflict could ripple through these collective defence frameworks, potentially imperilling transit routes through the Black Sea and the Red Sea, or critical sea lines of communication linking India to Europe and Eurasia.
  • Ideological Framing: By anchoring the signing of this pact in Mecca, the move explicitly seeks to project the arrangement across the Islamic world, drawing comparisons to an “Islamic NATO.” With nations such as Somalia already maintaining defence agreements with Pakistan and prospective interest from others, including Egypt, the alliance could expand significantly.

Amb Sanjay Acharya

A central issue with the Mecca Pact is the notable absence of an authentic, publicly available text. When an international agreement of this magnitude is shielded from public scrutiny, it
inevitably raises questions—suggesting details the signatories wish to withhold or structural elements that remain unfinished.

The Strategic Alignment of the Signatories

The choice of Mecca as the venue carries deep geopolitical symbolism. It signals a historic recalibration between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, moving beyond previous rivalries—such as
the aftermath of the Jamal Khashoggi incident—towards a unified front hosted by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

Despite their distinct regional interests, the three signatories share key strategic markers:

  • U.S. Security Ties: All three maintain long-standing, deep security ties with the United States.
  • Recalibration with Iran: Each nation has recently sought to manage or refurbish its complex bilateral ties with Tehran.
  • Position on Israel: Post-October 7 regional developments have derailed initiatives such as the Abraham Accords, creating shared incentives to counter Israeli actions in West Asia.

Precedents and Structural Dynamics

This is not the first attempt to establish a regional defence framework. It builds on past initiatives, including the Islamic Military Counterterrorism Coalition (IMCTC), established in 2015, and bilateral defence arrangements previously negotiated between Islamabad and Riyadh. However, the Mecca Pact advances these efforts by formally integrating Turkey.

While the exact legal text remains undisclosed, public statements—including those from Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan—suggest a framework inspired by collective defence models such as NATO’s Article 5. The pact appears to draw on the complementary strengths of its members:

  • Financial Backing: Saudi Arabian capital.
  • Military Technology: Turkish hardware, aerospace capabilities, and drone technology.
  • Manpower: Pakistani conventional forces and boots on the ground.

The announced focus emphasises joint coordination, interoperability, and regional stability. However, the absence of a declared joint command structure suggests that operational details remain under negotiation. Furthermore, despite expectations, broader adoption has lagged; Egypt, for instance, has abstained, likely influenced by historical precedents, including its past military intervention in Yemen.

Catalysts for the Alliance

Two primary factors have driven this convergence:

  • Erosion of U.S. Security Guarantees: The aftermath of the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Kabul and the perceived limits of American defence commitments have prompted Gulf nations to seek supplementary security arrangements.
  • Escalating Regional Conflicts: Heightened direct exchanges and asymmetric warfare across the Gulf have intensified the push for a consolidated deterrence capability.

Strategic Implications for India

From New Delhi’s perspective, the Ministry of External Affairs is actively evaluating the implications of this development. India’s strategic assessment should focus on three primary areas:

  • The Turkey-Pakistan Defence Axis: Enhanced technological cooperation between Ankara and Islamabad, backed by Gulf capital, could, over time, alter the regional military balance and embolden Pakistan.
  • Ideological and Transnational Networks: Indian security monitoring must remain vigilant to transnational political movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, across the wider neighbourhood.
  • Strategic Autonomy: Contrary to suggestions that India should counter by joining opposing military blocs, India’s strategic depth and conventional capabilities allow it to act independently.

Entering into rigid military alliances during a period of global fluidity would be counterproductive. India’s optimal approach remains to strengthen its sovereign defence
capabilities, preserve multi-aligned diplomatic relationships across all sides in West Asia, and navigate the regional transition from a position of strength.

Dr Shalini Chawla

The interests of the three signatories—Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan—are fundamentally distinct, as are the specific threats each seeks to counter. The mechanics of the Mecca Pact can be understood through four core national dimensions:

  • Saudi Arabia (Hedging and Security Diversification): As confidence in U.S. security guarantees wanes, the Mecca framework lets Riyadh pursue alternative security partnerships while preserving its foundational relationship with Washington. It offers a hedging strategy to safeguard critical energy infrastructure and ambitious economic development initiatives against regional threats, particularly from Iran and its proxies.
  • Turkey (Elevated Regional Profile): For Ankara, the pact consolidates its role as a primary security actor in the Gulf, repairing previously strained relations with Riyadh. Turkey seeks the strategic relevance this partnership affords and uses the alliance to project strength against its primary regional adversary, Israel.
  • Pakistan (Diplomatic Elevation and Strategic Relevance): Islamabad views this pact as a transformative opportunity to move from a habitual recipient of external aid to a net security provider. Building on the bilateral Saudi-Pakistan agreement signed in September 2025, Pakistan gains diplomatic leverage, closer integration with Saudi security structures, and expanded defence cooperation with Turkey. Furthermore, it positions itself as an operational burden-sharer for the United States, which seeks a reduced direct footprint in the Gulf.
  • Emergence of a Plural Security Order: The pact signals a shift towards a regionally driven, multi-polar security architecture in which middle powers actively shape defence arrangements rather than inheriting models dictated by Washington.

Key Takeaways and Strategic Realities

  1. Not an “Islamic NATO”: Framing this pact as a “Muslim NATO” is an oversimplified narrative—largely pushed by Pakistan for domestic consumption. The alliance lacks the unified threat perception, integrated command structure, and collective planning that underpinned NATO’s credibility. It is better understood as incremental regional balancing.
  2. Symbolic and Political Weight of Mecca: Choosing Mecca as the signing venue provides vital symbolic legitimacy. It projects solidarity among major Muslim nations, offers domestic political cover for governments with differing ideological orientations, and creates a platform to attract additional partners, such as Bangladesh.
  3. Institutional Impact and U.S. Tacit Consent: The pact’s primary significance is institutional, demonstrating that regional powers are increasingly willing to build minilateral security frameworks. However, this structure operates with the United States’ tacit consent rather than in direct opposition to it.
  4. Ambiguous Consequences for Iran and Israel: While the pact aims to deter Iranian influence, Tehran’s reaction remains complex, particularly given ongoing proxy dynamics such as Houthi strikes in the region. For Israel, Turkey’s inclusion and the pact’s religious framing create an unfavourable political environment, though the lack of operational integration mitigates immediate military concerns.
  5. Implications for India and South Asian Rivalry: The alliance risks internationalising South Asian bilateral dynamics. While it does not pose an immediate threat, a Gulf security environment that accords greater strategic weight to Pakistan requires close monitoring by New Delhi.
  6. Emboldenment and Increased Risk-Taking by Pakistan: Enhanced access to Saudi capital and Turkish defence technology could accelerate Pakistan’s conventional and strategic modernisation. Historically, when Pakistan feels strategically emboldened, its propensity for asymmetric risk-taking rises—a dynamic that could affect crisis stability along the Line of Control.
  7. Pakistan’s Severe Constraints and Overstretch: Despite its ambitions, Pakistan faces acute limitations. Its armed forces are severely overstretched along the Indian border, the Afghan frontier, internal counter-insurgency operations, and foreign commitments, including Somalia. Furthermore, domestic sectarian sensitivities remain a major constraint, as evidenced by Pakistan’s past refusal to join Saudi-led operations in Yemen.
  8. Multi-Alignment in the Gulf: Gulf nations are not committing to a monolithic bloc. They continue to pursue multi-alignment—partnering with China on infrastructure, the U.S. on strategic deterrence, India on trade and investment, and now Turkey and Pakistan on defence cooperation.

Ultimately, the Mecca Pact is neither a fully integrated military alliance nor mere political theatre. It signals a significant shift in the security order, with immediate political impact and
long-term potential in defence-industrial cooperation, joint diplomacy, and selective deterrence.

Lt Gen Raj Shukla

The joint defence agreement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan—signed by heads of government in Makkah on Friday, August 7, 2026—carries unmistakable religious symbolism. The alliance gained formal structure on August 31 in Istanbul, where foreign and defence ministers, defence chiefs, and General Asim Munir convened the Strategic Political and Defence Committee. They officially designated the pact the Makkah Defence Alliance (MDA), established a permanent secretariat in Riyadh, appointed a Pakistani Secretary General, and drafted plans for a centralised command-and-control framework modelled on NATO.

While New Delhi should avoid alarmism, this trajectory warrants rigorous strategic monitoring across three primary dimensions: core motivations, future operational realities,
and implications for India’s defence posture.

Core Drivers and Protagonists

  • Turkey (Ideological Expansion & Regional Ambition): Ankara has led this effort for nearly three years under President Erdoğan’s pan-Islamist, neo-Ottoman vision. Turkey seeks to extend its sphere of influence from Syria and Iraq to the Eastern Mediterranean, Somalia, and Libya, while pursuing defence partnerships in Southeast and South Asia. Countering Israeli power projection remains a central rallying point.
  • Saudi Arabia (Hard Power & Security Hedging): Riyadh faces a classic geopolitical vulnerability: substantial financial wealth coupled with conventional military limitations. With energy infrastructure and strategic assets increasingly exposed to air and missile strikes, Saudi Arabia seeks to anchor its security in partner capacity. By allying with Turkey—NATO’s second-largest military—and Pakistan, Riyadh diversifies its security portfolio amid waning confidence in U.S. regional guarantees.
  • Pakistan (Financial Relief & Strategic Relevance): For Islamabad, the MDA offers a means to overcome diplomatic isolation and to leverage its conventional military assets for economic survival. Facing severe domestic economic pressures, the Pakistani military leadership seeks to convert regional defence deployments into capital inflows and broader strategic influence.
  • Nuclear Hedging: While Pakistan has explicitly downplayed the prospect of extending a formal nuclear umbrella to MDA members, the alliance introduces a layer of nuclear
    hedging—offering deterrence leverage should rival regional powers advance their strategic programmes.

Near-Term Realities vs. Techno-Industrial Risks

In the immediate term, the MDA’s NATO-style collective defence clause (an attack on one is an attack on all) functions more as political posturing than as an operational reality. The
alliance currently lacks the integrated expeditionary capability or unified command structure required to conduct high-intensity, multi-theatre warfighting from the Mediterranean to the
Arabian Sea.

However, the real risk lies in its techno-military industrial collaboration:

  • Joint Defence Integration: The alliance establishes a framework for streamlined intelligence sharing, joint exercises, co-development of defence assets, and technology transfers.
  • Defence-Industrial Synergies: Turkey’s rapidly expanding defence-industrial base—particularly in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), electronic warfare, and missile technology—coupled with Saudi capital and Pakistani conventional forces, could significantly accelerate joint capability development.

Strategic Imperatives for India

Global conflict patterns show that lethal, targeted capability transfers—such as real-time satellite targeting, advanced sensors, and persistent uncrewed systems—often shift tactical
dynamics more quickly than formal treaty architecture. To navigate this fluid environment, India must evolve its security framework:

  • Move Beyond Passive Strategic Autonomy: While sovereign flexibility remains essential, India must translate diplomatic multi-alignment into functional, high-output defence-industrial partnerships—particularly with nations advancing fast-paced defence manufacturing, such as Israel, the UAE, select European states, South Korea, and Japan.
  • Leverage Private-Sector Defence Innovation: Modern defence innovation is increasingly driven by commercial technology and agile start-ups rather than purely state-led procurement. Integrating India’s high-tech defence start-ups directly into global, commercial-driven innovation networks will be critical to maintaining a technological edge.

Ultimately, although an integrated “Islamic NATO” remains operationally distant, the Makkah Defence Alliance marks a substantive shift toward minilateral military-industrial integration in West Asia—a development that demands sustained vigilance and proactive countermeasures.

 

Navigating Chokepoints: The Indo-Mediterranean Corridor and India’s Vision 2047

India aims to reach a GDP of USD 30 trillion by 2047 as part of its push to become a developed nation. This would require sustained real GDP growth of about 7 per cent while keeping inflation between 3 and 4 per cent. The target is ambitious but achievable. However, it would require a complete overhaul of its maritime trade architecture. To that end, India has launched the “Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047” (MAKV 2047), which aims to transform India into a dominant global maritime power by 2047, with an investment of about USD 1 trillion. This involves expanding port capacity, upgrading domestic shipbuilding capabilities, activating inland waterways and coastal shipping, and bypassing global geopolitical chokepoints to protect trade.[1]

For India, two projects are significant for global chokepoints. To the east is the ongoing Galathea Bay Project on Great Nicobar Island, overlooking the vital Strait of Malacca. To the west is the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a multimodal ship-to-rail network designed to bypass volatile Red Sea bottlenecks and cut transit times to Europe by 40%. The IMEC concept was announced on 9 September 2023 at the G20 Summit in New Delhi, where leaders of India, the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, France, Germany, Italy, and the European Union signed a Memorandum of Understanding. The IMEC comprises an Eastern Corridor connecting India to the Gulf region and a Northern Corridor connecting the Gulf region to Europe. It will include a railway and ship-rail network, along with road transport routes.[2]

Maritime trade accounts for nearly 95 per cent of India’s trade by volume and 70 per cent by value. This leaves India vulnerable to disruptions at chokepoints. At present, the Mediterranean shipping route via the Suez Canal and the Red Sea connects India directly to European, North African, and North American markets. About 35% of India’s maritime traffic passes through this corridor, supporting Indian exports of agricultural goods, engineering equipment, textiles, and chemicals.[3] Imports primarily consist of industrial machinery, advanced electronics, and components sourced from European trading hubs. This trade route has been heavily affected by turbulence around the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb, forcing vessels to reroute around the Cape. As a consequence, transit times and costs have increased.[4]

India meets most of its energy needs from the Gulf, with ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz carrying crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), LPG, and chemical fertilisers to Indian ports. This route accounts for a third of India’s total ship-borne trade. Earlier, it accounted for over 55 per cent of India’s crude imports, but the ongoing war between the US and Iran has forced India to diversify its energy basket, reducing its dependence on this route to about 30 per cent of its energy needs.

About 30-35 per cent of India’s trade with Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Americas passes through the Strait of Malacca. The bulk is non-oil trade. Imports include palm oil, finished electronic products, semiconductors, and manufactured goods from China, Japan, South Korea, and ASEAN states. Exports largely comprise iron ore, marine products, and organic chemicals. India’s protective positioning in Galathea Bay, with the ongoing construction of a deep-sea port and a transhipment hub, makes securing this trade route through its eastern gateway a key focus. For Western trade routes, the connection between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea is highly significant. This is India’s strategic geography—extending from the Indian Ocean into the Mediterranean via the Gulf, the Red Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. Secure Gulf and Red Sea routes are vital for India’s commerce; the alternative is the longer, costlier Cape route. This underscores IMEC’s importance in India’s trade calculus, but its success would also depend on a peaceful West Asia.

While the Indo-Mediterranean is not a formal geographical region or institutional grouping, it can be conceptualised as a strategic link connecting the Western Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean via the Arabian Sea, Gulf, Red Sea, Suez Canal and Eastern Mediterranean, highlighting the interconnectedness of these growing strategic spaces. For India, it is the gateway to Europe, North Africa and the Atlantic. India can no longer confine its strategic horizon to the Arabian Sea in the West, ending at Africa’s eastern shores. The Western Arc must now extend to the Mediterranean and Italy, providing a gateway to Western Europe and the Atlantic. Any instability anywhere along this chain will adversely affect India’s trade, energy security and connectivity. The key driver is connectivity. The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), through ports, railways, energy corridors, digital connectivity and supply chains, can integrate India more closely with Europe.

The security challenges, however, are immense. The ongoing US-Iran war has exposed the Strait of Hormuz’s fragility, while the Suez Canal-Red Sea-Bab el Mandeb linkage is increasingly vulnerable, highlighting how easily hostile actions can disrupt global commerce. India, along with other naval powers, would need to cooperate to keep these sea links open.

The Indo-Mediterranean framework also highlights growing shared interests in energy, trade, technology, infrastructure, and maritime security among India, West Asia, and Europe. This is why Israel, Egypt, Greece, Italy, France, and the UAE can become important nodes in this wider network. It offers India an opportunity to build partnerships and strengthen its resilience during crises without establishing a formal alliance. Such a link would help counter China’s expanding presence in the region and provide alternatives to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.

India’s peninsular position on the Indian Ocean gives it a geographical advantage, making it a natural connectivity hub linking the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea. This would benefit South Asia, West Asia, and North Africa. India’s strong diplomatic standing with Israel, the Gulf, Egypt, and the US and European powers could provide the diplomatic heft needed for such a corridor to come about. All this, of course, is predicated on peace and stability in West Asia. Importantly, we must not think of the Mediterranean as essentially Europe’s southern sea. As India’s strategic geography expands westward, the Indo-Mediterranean is a useful concept that can propel Bharat towards its ‘viksit’ status.

Author Brief Bio: Maj. Gen. Dhruv C. Katoch is Editor, India Foundation Journal and Director, India Foundation.

Endnotes:

[1] Press Information Bureau, Government of India. “Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047.” Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, December 3, 2024.

[2] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) & India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC),”

[3] Rahul Saikia, “What’s the Extent of India’s Dependence on Maritime Chokepoints? Why Alternatives Are Stunted,” ThePrint, April 20, 2026.

[4] Dimitris Gavalas, “Safeguarding Maritime Flows in an Age of Turbulence,” Observer Research Foundation, July 30, 2026.

 

Reimagining India’s Western Theatre in an Age of Strategic Disruption and Transition to a New World Order

Introduction: The Crisis of Existing Strategic Frameworks

International politics is undergoing a structural transition unmatched since the Soviet Union’s collapse. The geopolitical certainties that characterised the post-Cold War era are giving way to a far more complex strategic environment, marked by great-power competition, technological disruption, fragmented supply chains, economic coercion, maritime insecurity, and the weaponisation of trade, finance and critical technologies. These changes are not isolated developments; they are interconnected manifestations of a broader transformation in the architecture of global power.

Traditional geopolitical analysis remains largely organised around geographically bounded regions – Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and the Indo-Pacific. These constructs served an important analytical purpose in earlier eras, when strategic interactions were primarily determined by territorial proximity and military geography. Today, however, the density of economic, technological, logistical and maritime interdependence has fundamentally altered the character of strategic space.

A disruption in the Red Sea rapidly drives up freight costs for Indian exporters. Tensions in the Strait of Hormuz immediately affect India’s energy security and inflation. Political instability in Afghanistan affects India’s overland access to Central Asia. Israeli innovation contributes to India’s defence modernisation, while sovereign wealth funds from the Gulf finance infrastructure, technology and renewable energy projects across India. Although these developments occur in different countries, they generate immediate and interconnected strategic consequences for India.

The central argument of this paper is that these developments should no longer be analysed as discrete regional events. They constitute components of a single strategic ecosystem. Existing analytical frameworks illuminate important aspects of this environment but fail to explain the increasingly systemic interactions among maritime security, continental connectivity, technology, finance, logistics, and diplomacy.

The Western Strategic Continuum is proposed as a response to this intellectual gap. It is not a replacement for existing geopolitical theories but an integrative, India-centric framework that explains how strategic systems interact across the western approaches to the Indian subcontinent.

From Classical Geopolitics to Functional Strategic Geography

Strategic thought has evolved alongside changes in technology, economics and political power. Kautilya’s Arthashastra emphasised the dynamic nature of interstate relations, arguing that alliances and rivalries should be understood in terms of shifting interests rather than permanent ideological commitments. His relational understanding of power anticipated many features of contemporary strategic behaviour.

The industrial age produced the classical geopolitical theories of Halford Mackinder, Alfred Thayer Mahan and Nicholas Spykman. Mackinder highlighted the strategic importance of continental control through the Heartland Theory. Mahan emphasised the centrality of sea power and maritime commerce. Spykman argued that the Rimland was the decisive arena of geopolitical competition. While these theories differed in emphasis, they shared a common assumption: geography was primarily understood in terms of territory.

The Indo-Pacific concept marked a major intellectual advance by recognising the strategic integration of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It reflected the growing importance of maritime connectivity and economic interdependence. Yet even the Indo-Pacific framework pays relatively little attention to the western strategic environment, stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia.

The Western Strategic Continuum builds on these traditions but argues that twenty-first-century geography is increasingly functional rather than territorial. Power no longer flows solely through land or sea; it flows through ports, logistics hubs, undersea cables, digital infrastructure, financial systems, technology ecosystems and resilient supply chains. Strategic geography is therefore increasingly determined by connectivity rather than proximity.

In this context, the paper introduces Functional Geography as an India-centric framework that organises strategic space by the interaction of economic, technological, maritime, energy and security functions rather than by conventional political boundaries. Regions become strategically contiguous not because they share borders but because developments in one produce direct consequences in another.

The Western Strategic Continuum: An India-Centric Theory of Twenty-First Century Strategic Geography

The central proposition of this paper is that India’s western strategic environment should no longer be understood as a collection of independent regions, but as an integrated strategic ecosystem in which developments across the Eastern Mediterranean, the Levant, the Gulf, Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia interact continuously. The Western Strategic Continuum (WSC) therefore represents a strategic systems framework rather than a geographical construct.

Unlike traditional geopolitical models that organise analysis around sovereign boundaries, the WSC defines strategic space through interconnected functions. Its analytical focus shifts from states to networks, from territory to systems, and from regional boundaries to strategic interdependence. It is not intended to replace existing concepts such as the Indo-Pacific or Eurasia, but to complement them by providing an India-centric framework for understanding developments to India’s west.

The defining characteristic of the Continuum is functional interdependence. Energy security depends on maritime stability. Maritime security enables connectivity. Connectivity facilitates trade and investment. Technology strengthens defence capabilities. Economic statecraft reinforces diplomacy. In turn, diplomacy creates the political confidence necessary for long-term economic and technological cooperation. These domains do not operate in isolation; they reinforce one another through continuous interaction.

This interconnectedness has become increasingly evident over the past decade. Attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea significantly increased freight costs for Indian exports to Europe. The escalation around the Strait of Hormuz immediately affected international energy markets. Instability in Afghanistan affected India’s continental connectivity via Chabahar. Israeli technological innovation strengthened India’s defence ecosystem, while sovereign wealth investments from the Gulf accelerated infrastructure and digital transformation in India. Each development occurred in a different geographical location, yet all had direct consequences for India’s national power.

The Western Strategic Continuum therefore argues that the strategic question facing Indian policymakers is no longer “Where is India’s western neighbourhood?” but rather “Which interconnected strategic systems directly shape India’s national power?”

The Original Theoretical Contributions of the Western Strategic Continuum

The principal contribution of the Western Strategic Continuum lies not merely in redefining a geographical space, but in introducing a coherent conceptual vocabulary for analysing twenty-first-century geopolitics. The framework advances seven interrelated concepts that together constitute an original theory of strategic geography.

  1. A. Functional Geography

Traditional geopolitics measures geography primarily by territorial proximity. Functional Geography holds that strategic relevance increasingly stems from the interaction of functions rather than physical distance. Ports, maritime corridors, digital infrastructure, financial centres, technological ecosystems, energy networks and logistics chains collectively organise strategic space. Under this framework, regions become strategically contiguous when developments in one generate measurable consequences in another.

Accordingly, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Gulf, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia constitute a single functional strategic space for India, as they collectively shape energy security, maritime trade, technological cooperation, continental connectivity and economic resilience.

  1. B. Strategic Gravity

Building on Functional Geography, the WSC introduces the concept of Strategic Gravity. Whereas classical geopolitics associated power with territory, population or military strength, Strategic Gravity explains why certain locations exert influence disproportionate to their physical size by concentrating multiple strategic functions. The Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, the Suez Canal, Jebel Ali, Chabahar and Haifa are not strategically important because of their geography alone. Their influence derives from the convergence of maritime commerce, logistics, energy flows, finance, technology and geopolitical competition.

Similarly, financial centres such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai, technology ecosystems in Israel, sovereign wealth funds across the Gulf, and semiconductor and artificial intelligence clusters are emerging centres of Strategic Gravity that increasingly shape global strategic behaviour. Strategic Gravity therefore extends the meaning of geopolitical power beyond military geography to encompass infrastructure, technology, finance and connectivity.

  1. C. Continuum Effects

Perhaps the most original theoretical innovation of the WSC is the concept of Continuum Effects. Traditional strategic analysis often treats crises as geographically contained events. The WSC argues, by contrast, that strategic disruptions propagate through interconnected systems, producing cascading consequences that transcend their point of origin.

A conflict in the Gulf may increase shipping insurance premiums, alter freight rates, reduce investor confidence, disrupt energy markets, affect Chabahar’s commercial viability, influence Afghanistan’s trade options, reshape India’s continental strategy and alter diplomatic calculations across Central Asia. The original event is maritime. Its consequences become economic, then technological, then diplomatic, and finally geopolitical. This process constitutes Continuum Effects. Understanding these cascading interactions enables policymakers to anticipate second- and third-order strategic consequences rather than merely responding to immediate crises.

  1. D. Strategic Interdependence

The twentieth century emphasised Strategic Depth – territorial buffers, spheres of influence and military space. The twenty-first century increasingly rewards Strategic Interdependence.

Strategic Interdependence refers to the deliberate creation of multiple political, technological, logistical and economic relationships that reduce dependence upon any single corridor, alliance or partner while enhancing national resilience. India’s simultaneous participation in IMEC, the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and Chabahar illustrates this principle. These initiatives should not be viewed as competing projects but as complementary components of a diversified connectivity strategy that enhances resilience and preserves strategic autonomy.

  1. E. Strategic Redundancy

Closely related is the concept of Strategic Redundancy. Rather than seeking a single optimal supply chain or transport corridor, states increasingly build multiple interoperable alternatives capable of absorbing geopolitical shocks. For India, this means that IMEC, INSTC, Chabahar, Duqm, Haifa and maritime partnerships across the Gulf should be understood collectively as elements of one integrated strategy rather than as isolated infrastructure projects. Redundancy becomes resilience. Resilience becomes strategic power.

  1. F. Adaptive Legitimacy

Contemporary diplomacy increasingly engages political authorities on the basis of strategic necessity rather than formal recognition. The WSC conceptualises this phenomenon as Adaptive Legitimacy.

India’s calibrated engagement with Afghanistan following the Taliban’s return to power illustrates this principle. Without extending formal diplomatic recognition, New Delhi reopened its technical mission and expanded practical engagement to safeguard humanitarian interests, connectivity and regional stability. The concept also offers a framework for analysing evolving regional engagement amid political transitions elsewhere, including in Syria. Adaptive Legitimacy does not replace international law; rather, it explains how states pragmatically manage relationships amid political uncertainty.

  1. G. Networked Strategic Balancing

The WSC further argues that the rigid alliance structures characteristic of the Cold War are increasingly being replaced by Networked Strategic Balancing. States maximise resilience by participating in multiple overlapping strategic networks simultaneously.

India exemplifies this approach through strategic partnerships with the United States, France, Israel, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Japan, while maintaining dialogue with Russia, Iran and Central Asia through forums such as BRICS and the SCO. Rather than indicating inconsistency, this multidirectional diplomacy is a deliberate strategy to preserve strategic autonomy within an increasingly fragmented international system.

The Six Strategic Systems of the Western Strategic Continuum

The Western Strategic Continuum argues that twenty-first-century geopolitical competition is increasingly organised around six mutually reinforcing strategic systems rather than by geography alone. These comprise:

  • The Security System – encompassing military deterrence, maritime security, intelligence cooperation, counter-terrorism, and emerging domains such as cyber and space.
  • The Logistics System – including ports, multimodal transport corridors, aviation, shipping, strategic chokepoints, and resilient supply chains.
  • The Economic System – trade, finance, sanctions, sovereign wealth funds, energy markets and investment.
  • The Technology System – artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum technologies, cyber infrastructure, unmanned systems and digital public infrastructure.
  • The Political System – diplomacy, governance, coalition building and adaptive legitimacy.
  • The Societal System – diaspora networks, labour mobility, education, narratives and public diplomacy.

The strategic significance of these systems lies not merely in their individual importance but in their interaction. A disruption in one system rapidly propagates across the others, triggering cascading Continuum Effects. The Western Strategic Continuum therefore supplants the traditional image of separate geopolitical theatres with that of a dynamic strategic ecosystem, in which constituent systems continuously reinforce, reshape and influence one another.

India’s Grand Strategy within the Western Strategic Continuum

The Western Strategic Continuum is more than an analytical construct; it provides a framework for formulating India’s grand strategy in an era of strategic disruption. It seeks to integrate maritime security, continental connectivity, technology partnerships, economic statecraft and diplomacy into a coherent strategic architecture. Unlike traditional approaches that compartmentalise these domains, the WSC argues that they are mutually reinforcing instruments of national power.

As India aspires to become a Viksit Bharat by 2047 and to emerge as one of the world’s leading economic and technological powers, its western strategic theatre assumes unprecedented importance. Nearly 95 per cent of India’s merchandise trade by volume moves by sea, and around half of its crude oil imports originate in West Asia. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has become one of India’s largest trading partners. Nearly ten million Indians reside across the Gulf, forming one of the world’s largest overseas communities and reinforcing economic, technological and societal linkages.

Consequently, India’s western approaches can no longer be viewed simply as an external neighbourhood. They constitute a strategic extension of India’s own economic and security architecture.

Maritime Security: Protecting India’s Strategic Lifelines

The maritime domain underpins the Western Strategic Continuum. India’s prosperity depends on secure Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) stretching from the Arabian Sea through the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Eastern Mediterranean. These routes carry not only energy but also manufactured exports, critical minerals, food supplies, digital infrastructure and commercial shipping.

Within the WSC, maritime security is no longer confined to naval deterrence. It encompasses maritime domain awareness, cyber resilience, the protection of undersea communication cables and offshore energy infrastructure, resilient logistics networks, and cooperative maritime security arrangements. The attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea in 2024 demonstrated how a localised security challenge could generate global economic consequences, including higher insurance premiums, rerouting vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, and significantly higher freight costs. India’s SAGAR doctrine (Security and Growth for All in the Region) aligns naturally with the logic of the Western Strategic Continuum. It reflects an understanding that maritime security is a regional public good that underpins economic prosperity, connectivity and strategic stability.

Connectivity as Grand Strategy

One of the central propositions of the Western Strategic Continuum is that connectivity is no longer merely an economic activity; it has become an instrument of geopolitical influence. Infrastructure projects increasingly shape strategic alignments, supply-chain resilience and regional power balances. Accordingly, India’s objective should be to avoid exclusive reliance on any single corridor and to develop multiple, complementary and resilient connectivity networks.

Three initiatives illustrate this strategy:

  • The International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC) provides India with diversified access to Russia, Central Asia and Europe through Iran and the Caspian region.
  • Chabahar Port remains indispensable for continental connectivity to Afghanistan and Central Asia while bypassing Pakistan.
  • The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) integrates maritime transport, rail infrastructure, digital connectivity and clean-energy networks linking India with the Gulf and Europe.

These initiatives should not be viewed as competing geopolitical projects. Through the lens of the Western Strategic Continuum, they represent complementary elements of a diversified connectivity architecture designed to enhance strategic resilience and preserve India’s strategic autonomy. This reflects the broader concept of Strategic Redundancy: creating multiple interoperable pathways to ensure continuity under conditions of geopolitical disruption.

Strategic Gravity and India’s Overseas Infrastructure Strategy

The concept of Strategic Gravity also underscores the growing importance of India’s overseas commercial investments. Historically, ports were viewed primarily as commercial assets. Within the Western Strategic Continuum, they are understood as strategic nodes that organise logistics, finance, technology and geopolitical influence. India’s expanding overseas infrastructure footprint illustrates this evolution.

The Adani–Gadot consortium’s acquisition of Haifa Port has given India its first significant commercial presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, complementing IMEC’s objectives and extending India’s maritime reach beyond the Suez Canal. Chabahar remains India’s continental gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia, while participation in the Colombo West Container Terminal and cooperation with Duqm in Oman further strengthen India’s logistics network across the Indian Ocean. Taken together, these investments signal the emergence of an Indian overseas infrastructure strategy spanning the Mediterranean and the Arabian Sea. Rather than isolated commercial ventures, they constitute interconnected strategic assets that contribute to supply-chain resilience, diversified connectivity and geopolitical influence.

Economic Statecraft and the Indian Commercial Footprint

Perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of India’s rise is the remarkable expansion of Indian private enterprise across the Gulf. The United Arab Emirates has emerged as India’s principal commercial gateway to West Asia, Africa and Europe. More than 80,000 Indian-owned businesses operate in the UAE, supported by a diaspora of nearly four million Indians. These enterprises span logistics, healthcare, retail, construction, banking, advanced manufacturing, technology and financial services.

Major Indian companies—including the Tata Group, Adani Group, Larsen & Toubro, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Lulu Group, Landmark Group and Aster DM Healthcare—have become integral to the Gulf’s economic transformation. Their activities generate employment, facilitate technology transfer, strengthen supply chains and reinforce India’s long-term strategic presence. The WSC therefore broadens the concept of economic statecraft. National influence is no longer exercised solely by governments but increasingly through private enterprise, sovereign wealth partnerships, innovation ecosystems and transnational business networks.

Technology and Atmanirbhar Bharat

Technology is the principal strategic multiplier within the Western Strategic Continuum. Artificial intelligence, cyber resilience, autonomous systems, quantum technologies, semiconductors and digital infrastructure increasingly determine both military capability and economic competitiveness.

Israel occupies a central position in this technological ecosystem. Defence cooperation has evolved from procurement to joint research, co-development and technology transfer across missile systems, electronic warfare, cyber security, unmanned systems and artificial intelligence. Simultaneously, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are investing heavily in advanced manufacturing, AI, digital infrastructure and knowledge-based industries, creating opportunities for deeper collaboration with India’s expanding technology ecosystem.

These developments directly support the objectives of Atmanirbhar Bharat, which aims to enhance indigenous capabilities through innovation, domestic manufacturing, technology transfer and research collaboration. Within the WSC, technology is not a standalone sector but the connective tissue linking maritime security, logistics, defence industrialisation and economic growth.

Afghanistan: The Continental Pivot

No country illustrates the logic of the Western Strategic Continuum more clearly than Afghanistan. Traditionally seen primarily as a security challenge, Afghanistan should instead be understood as the continental pivot linking India’s maritime and Eurasian strategies. Its significance stems not merely from geography but from its role in wider networks of connectivity, logistics and regional trade.

India’s long-standing development engagement, spanning the Afghan Parliament, the Salma Dam, highways, healthcare, and education, has generated enduring goodwill among the Afghan people. Following the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, New Delhi adopted a calibrated approach, reopening its technical mission while maintaining its security concerns. This pragmatic engagement reflects the WSC concept of Adaptive Legitimacy, in which strategic engagement is shaped by functional necessity rather than formal diplomatic recognition alone.

For India, Afghanistan is not merely a frontier state; it is the bridge linking the Arabian Sea’s maritime systems to the continental networks of Central Asia. Its future stability is therefore inseparable from India’s broader connectivity strategy via Chabahar and the INSTC.

Strategic Autonomy through Networked Partnerships

The Western Strategic Continuum ultimately reinforces India’s long-standing doctrine of strategic autonomy. Rather than choosing between competing geopolitical blocs, India has cultivated productive partnerships with Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Iran and Afghanistan, while deepening engagement with the United States, Europe, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

This multidirectional engagement exemplifies the WSC’s concept of Networked Strategic Balancing. In an increasingly fragmented international system, resilience stems from diversified partnerships rather than exclusive alliances. The objective is not neutrality but the maximisation of strategic options. This approach uniquely positions India among major powers. It enables New Delhi to act as a bridge between regions, institutions and competing strategic networks while preserving its freedom of action.

Theoretical Significance, Policy Implications and the Future of India’s Grand Strategy

The Western Strategic Continuum is proposed not merely as another regional framework but as an original contribution to the evolution of strategic thought. Just as Sir Halford Mackinder’s Heartland Theory explained the geopolitical dynamics of the industrial age, Alfred Thayer Mahan illuminated the importance of maritime power, Nicholas Spykman redefined the significance of the Eurasian Rimland, and the Indo-Pacific concept reflected the maritime integration of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Western Strategic Continuum seeks to explain the changing character of strategic geography in an era defined by interconnected systems rather than isolated territories.

Its principal innovation lies in recognising that twenty-first-century geopolitics is no longer organised primarily around contiguous regions or military alliances. Instead, it is structured by the interaction of strategic systems spanning logistics, technology, finance, maritime security, political legitimacy, economic statecraft and societal networks. Strategic influence increasingly derives from the ability to organise, protect and shape these systems rather than from territorial control alone. The Western Strategic Continuum therefore marks a transition from classical geopolitics to systems geopolitics.

From Strategic Geography to Strategic Systems

For much of the twentieth century, geography was treated as a relatively static determinant of power. Mountains, rivers, coastlines, and territorial buffers shaped military planning and alliance structures. Strategic advantage depended on controlling physical space. The twenty-first century presents a markedly different reality.

Today, geography acquires strategic significance through the density of networks that traverse it. A narrow maritime chokepoint such as the Strait of Hormuz influences global energy markets by concentrating maritime trade and energy flows. A port such as Haifa acquires geopolitical importance by connecting the Mediterranean to emerging connectivity initiatives such as IMEC. Chabahar derives strategic value by linking India’s maritime strategy with its continental access to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Likewise, digital infrastructure, undersea communication cables, financial centres and artificial intelligence ecosystems increasingly exercise geopolitical influence comparable to traditional military assets. Accordingly, the Western Strategic Continuum advances a broader understanding of strategic geography in which connectivity has become as important as proximity.

Policy Implications for India

 The Western Strategic Continuum offers a practical framework for India’s long-term strategic planning. Several policy implications follow. First, India should adopt the Western Strategic Continuum as an integrated analytical framework for national security planning. Institutional structures often continue to examine West Asia, the Gulf, Afghanistan and Central Asia separately. While administrative specialisation remains necessary, strategic planning should increasingly recognise the functional interdependence among these regions. Energy security, maritime strategy, technological cooperation, connectivity and diplomacy should therefore be analysed collectively rather than through isolated bureaucratic lenses.

Second, India should continue to build strategic redundancy across connectivity corridors. The International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), Chabahar Port and India’s expanding maritime partnerships should be seen as complementary rather than competing initiatives. Diversified connectivity reduces vulnerability to sanctions, conflict, maritime disruption and geopolitical coercion. This approach reflects the principle of Strategic Redundancy developed within the WSC.

Third, India should strengthen its overseas infrastructure strategy. Strategic investments in ports, logistics hubs and industrial corridors should become a permanent component of India’s foreign policy. The acquisition of Haifa Port, participation in the Colombo West Container Terminal, the development of Chabahar and expanded cooperation with Duqm illustrate the emergence of such a strategy. Collectively, these assets extend India’s strategic reach from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and enhance supply-chain resilience.

Fourth, technology partnerships should become a central pillar of national strategy. Within the Western Strategic Continuum, technology is not merely an economic sector but a strategic enabler. India’s collaboration with Israel in defence innovation, artificial intelligence, cyber security and unmanned systems, together with expanding partnerships with the UAE and Saudi Arabia in advanced manufacturing and digital infrastructure, complements the objectives of Atmanirbhar Bharat and strengthens India’s long-term strategic competitiveness.

Fifth, economic statecraft should become an integral component of grand strategy. The activities of Indian businesses across the Gulf, sovereign wealth partnerships, infrastructure investments and digital cooperation increasingly reinforce India’s geopolitical influence. The more than 80,000 Indian-owned businesses operating in the UAE, together with the broader Indian commercial presence across the Gulf, constitute strategic assets that complement formal diplomacy and enhance India’s economic resilience.

Finally, India should preserve strategic autonomy through diversified partnerships. The Western Strategic Continuum reinforces India’s long-standing commitment to multi-alignment. Rather than viewing the international system through rigid alliance blocs, India should continue to pursue what this paper describes as Networked Strategic Balancing, deepening partnerships with the United States, Europe, Israel and the Gulf while maintaining constructive engagement with Iran, Russia, Central Asia and the wider Global South. This approach maximises strategic flexibility and reduces vulnerability to geopolitical fragmentation.

Conclusion: Towards an India-Centric Theory of Strategic Geography

The transition currently reshaping international politics is more profound than a redistribution of power among states. It is a transformation of the architecture through which power is generated and exercised. Military capability remains indispensable, but it is increasingly complemented, and in many cases conditioned, by resilience across logistics, technology, energy, finance, maritime connectivity, digital infrastructure and economic statecraft. The defining feature of the contemporary strategic environment is therefore not simply the interdependence of regions but the interdependence of strategic systems.

The Western Strategic Continuum offers an India-centric conceptual framework for understanding this transformation. By integrating the Eastern Mediterranean, the Gulf, Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia into a single strategic ecosystem, it provides a more comprehensive explanation of how developments across these regions collectively shape India’s national security, economic resilience and geopolitical influence.

Its theoretical contribution extends beyond defining a new strategic theatre. Through the concepts of Functional Geography, Strategic Gravity, Continuum Effects, Strategic Interdependence, Strategic Redundancy, Adaptive Legitimacy and Networked Strategic Balancing, the framework provides an integrated conceptual vocabulary for analysing twenty-first-century geopolitics. Together, these concepts explain why disruptions propagate across regions, why infrastructure has become an instrument of power, why connectivity increasingly determines strategic advantage, and why resilience now depends on participation in multiple overlapping networks rather than on exclusive alliances.

For India, the implications are profound. The country’s western approaches are no longer peripheral to its strategic outlook; they are central to its emergence as a leading global power. Secure maritime routes, resilient connectivity, advanced technology partnerships, overseas infrastructure investments, trusted commercial networks and diversified diplomatic relationships together form the foundations of India’s future grand strategy.

Looking ahead, the Western Strategic Continuum also presents a broader intellectual proposition. If the twentieth century was defined by the geopolitics of territory and the early twenty-first century by the geopolitics of oceans, embodied in the Indo-Pacific, the coming decades are likely to be characterised by the geopolitics of interconnected strategic systems. In that evolving landscape, the decisive question for states will no longer be who controls the greatest territory, but who most effectively shapes the networks through which energy, technology, capital, information, logistics and influence flow.

The Western Strategic Continuum seeks to provide India with the conceptual framework for understanding and ultimately shaping that emerging strategic order.

Author Brief Bio: Sumeer Bhasin is Founder & CEO of Anaar Global, an accomplished investment banker, adventurous entrepreneur, and geopolitical analyst with over 35 years of experience across investment banking, strategic advisory and venture-building in complex and emerging markets. His career spans India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East, where he has built businesses and advised stakeholders navigating political and economic uncertainty. A leading Afghanistan specialist, he has played an active role in regional dialogue, Track 1.5 diplomacy and strategic engagement across policy and business platforms. Through think-tank collaborations, international policy forums, podcasts, panel discussions and regular articles on geopolitical developments from an Indian strategic perspective, he offers actionable insights on governance, diplomacy and economic integration.

 

Leveraging geography into strategic partnership: Indo-Italian regional ambitions in the Indo-Mediterranean

Abstract

The Indo-Mediterranean has been formalised through high-level communication between New Delhi and Rome, yet scholarship has not kept pace: existing literature examines Italy’s Indo-Pacific tilt, India’s extended neighbourhood, IMEC’s economic architecture and Chinese port diplomacy in the Mediterranean, often in isolation. This article sits at the intersection of these themes, taking the Indo-Italian dyad as its unit of analysis. Drawing on neoclassical realism, it explains the causal mechanism by which two peninsular states at either end of the Suez–Red Sea–Arabian Sea continuum convert geography into strategic influence: independent doctrinal codification through India’s MAHASAGAR vision and Italy’s Enlarged Mediterranean, joint naming of the space between them, and material institutionalisation through naval, corridor, digital and industrial cooperation. Locating the drivers in domestic recalibration rather than great-power competition, it argues that IMEC’s under-institutionalised condition is not an obstacle to influence but its opportunity structure: in a corridor that carries no freight, agenda-setting and recognition accrue to whoever anchors the process.

Introduction

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Rome in May 2026, which elevated Indo-Italian relations to a ‘Special Strategic Partnership,’ marks the formal emergence of what both governments now call the ‘Indo-Mediterranean.’ The joint declaration signed by Modi and Meloni anchored this ambition, linking connectivity via the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), maritime security, and industrial and energy cooperation, positioning the two states as co-architects of a maritime continuum stretching from the Arabian Sea to Southern Europe. Behind the diplomatic vocabulary lies a more substantive shift: two states, geographically distant and structurally different, are progressively building an infrastructure of cooperation across a space that neither had, until recently, treated as a shared strategic theatre.

Existing accounts explain this rapprochement largely in reactive terms – as Italian alignment with wider European engagement in the Indo-Pacific, or as Indian projection into an “extended neighbourhood” driven by strategic competition with China. These readings capture part of the picture but miss its most interesting dimension. The convergence between Rome and New Delhi is anchored in independent domestic recalibrations, with India’s MAHASAGAR vision and Italy’s Enlarged Mediterranean, resulting in a structural symmetry between two peninsular states that, from asymmetric positions of power, share an interest in managing the maritime space between them.

This article explains the causal mechanism by which geography is leveraged as a strategic influence: a peninsular position at either end of the Suez-Red Sea-Arabian Sea strategic space, leading to official renaming and bilateral material institutionalisation through naval deployments, connectivity, and economic and technological exchanges. Drawing on neoclassical realism, it examines how maritime cooperation, resilient supply chains, industrial co-development via IMEC, and technological connectivity via digital cables result in greater access, agenda-setting influence, and recognition for both states. It concludes by assessing the vulnerabilities of such bilateral strategies to regional turbulences such as Red Sea disruption, the 2026 Iran conflict, and IMEC’s structural fragilities.

Relevant Literature & Theoretical Framework

Scholarship on the ‘Indo-Mediterranean’ can largely be attributed to Scott, who analyses the term’s origin in his geopolitical account and grounds its contemporary use in the economic architecture of the IMEC.[1] Scott views India and Italy as “China-concerned states” that balance Beijing’s influence through their own maritime power projection, and concludes that the Indo-Mediterranean is a “strategic space” rather than a region, where realist competition prevails.[2] The rest of the relevant IR scholarship remains siloed, with Indian scholars theorising about Modi’s maritime policies, including IMEC in the Mediterranean, while Italian scholars explain Rome’s Indo-Pacific tilt and yet others measure Chinese port diplomacy.[3] However, the Indo-Mediterranean has not been analysed using the Indo-Italian dyad as the unit of analysis, and this article, which sits at the intersection of the above themes, aims to fill that gap. Applying a neoclassical realist lens,[4] it lays out the causal mechanism used by the two anchor states to leverage geography into strategic influence. This lens explains the role of domestic drivers in Rome and Delhi in the shared codification and material institutionalisation of the Indo-Mediterranean, as well as the role of their security elites in operationalising the architecture to secure greater status.[5] The ‘Indo-Mediterranean’ joint naming is essential here, as it lowers the legitimacy costs of the two anchors’ presence in each other’s home basin – what Larson and Shevchenko term ‘social creativity.’[6] This piece contributes by demonstrating the converging logic of Indo-Italian strategic, maritime, economic and technological architecture in the following sections.

Strategic Convergence: India

India’s westward maritime tilt is not merely a reaction to balance Chinese port diplomacy in the Mediterranean, but a continuation of the strategic tradition of securing the country’s western boundary. Scholars such as K. M. Panikkar insisted that Indian security rested on command of the Arabian Sea, a view echoed by the present crises in the Gulf and Red Sea littorals.[7] The current strategic apparatus has evolved from the “extended neighbourhood” framing, which extends from the Suez Canal to Singapore in the east, to the “Link West & Act West”[8] policies, which have led to expanded bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the Mediterranean, especially through IMEC in 2023.

The SAGAR doctrine, upgraded to MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions) by PM Modi in 2025, is a holistic regional strategy to strengthen India’s maritime legacy beyond the Indo-Pacific.[9] The Modi–Meloni op-ed of May 2026 then codified the interconnectedness of the Indo-Pacific and the Mediterranean, giving official endorsement to a space whose emergence stemmed from Indian and Italian security elites’ framing of it as beneficial to its co-architects.

Three domestic factors contribute to the ‘Indo-Mediterranean’. The first is an energy and connectivity imperative. Europe is India’s largest trading partner, and the Red Sea disruptions of 2024–25, which tripled transport costs, followed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, made route diversification a necessity rather than a preference. IMEC is crucial to Indian economic growth, as a direct, secure link with Europe is the prerequisite for the institutional mechanism of the India-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of January 2026 to operationalise.[10]

Secondly, the industrial and technological development of an Atmanirbhar Bharat greatly benefits from Italian defence, shipbuilding and energy partnerships – co-development and technology transfer in naval and defence equipment, and electrolyser manufacturing for a National Green Hydrogen Mission backed by 2.5 billion USD in investment.

Thirdly, it exemplifies a rising power’s drive for greater status by co-authoring a strategic corridor, thereby legitimising Indian agency to manage it more effectively, while quietly aligning with Italy to reshape the regional structure for mutual gain. Indian security elites, thus, invoke this strategic corridor at multiple international academic fora, such as the Indian Ocean Conference and the Mediterranean Dialogue, to gain legitimacy and a seat at the table deciding the future of a consequential strategic theatre.[11] Such power projection through MAHASAGAR is not without competition from Chinese port diplomacy and India’s own infrastructure being in the developing stages, but the bilateral commitment remains strong even from the western anchor, as discussed in the next section.[12]

Strategic Convergence: Italy

Italy’s turn towards the Indo-Mediterranean is best read not as an external adaptation to great-power competition, but as the outcome of a domestic recalibration of its strategic identity, which has been maturing for over a decade. The doctrinal antecedent is the older concept of the Enlarged Mediterranean (Mediterraneo allargato), developed within the Italian Navy in the 1980s and progressively adopted into official strategic doctrine from the 1990s – a framework that defines Italy’s maritime area of interest as a continuum extending from the central Mediterranean through the Red Sea into the western Indian Ocean and the Gulf.[13]

What is new is not the doctrinal framework but the seriousness of its operational and political mobilisation. Italy has not published a dedicated Indo-Pacific strategy comparable to those of France, Germany, or the Netherlands; its 2022 contribution to the EU Indo-Pacific strategy remains the closest formal statement of intent.[14] Yet the absence of a single doctrinal document coexists with a densely populated field of practice: naval deployments, ministerial visits, industrial agreements, and connectivity initiatives, taken together, mark a coherent reorientation.[15]

Three domestic drivers explain the trajectory. First, an energy and connectivity imperative: the post-2022 decoupling from Russian gas made the Mediterranean-African corridor central to Italian energy security, and the Mattei Plan for Africa was designed to consolidate Rome’s role as a southern hub for energy and infrastructure linking Europe, Africa, and the space beyond Suez.[16]

Second, an industrial and technological imperative: Italian defence, aerospace, and shipbuilding firms such as Leonardo and Fincantieri require growth markets and integration into resilient supply chains, which India – with its industrial scale, indigenisation drive, and stable demand pipeline – can offer on an unprecedented scale. Third, a status and positioning imperative: the exit from the Belt and Road Initiative in late 2023 opened both a symbolic and a strategic space that Rome has filled by reframing itself as a connecting middle power capable of anchoring the western end of a new corridor architecture, rather than as a marginal participant in projects designed elsewhere.[17]

Read together, the Indian and Italian doctrines describe the same water from opposite directions. MAHASAGAR extends India’s horizon westward beyond the Indian Ocean; the Enlarged Mediterranean extends Italy’s eastward past Suez into the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Each had reached towards the other’s basin before either government named the space between them — which is why the joint naming in May 2026 codified a convergence rather than creating one. The India–Italy Joint Strategic Action Plan 2025–2029, adopted in November 2024 and reinforced by the elevation to a Special Strategic Partnership in May 2026, provides the diplomatic scaffolding.[18]

Building the Corridor

The corridor is built on three main pillars. These are

  • Maritime cooperation.
  • Industrial & technological architecture.
  • From position to strategic influence & recognition.

Maritime cooperation

Maritime cooperation provides the clearest empirical evidence of Indo-Italian operationalisation in the Indo-Mediterranean. The pattern, consolidated since 2023, is one of reciprocal projection: Italian naval assets deploying into the Indian Ocean, Indian naval assets into the Mediterranean, with joint exercises, port calls, and now permanent consultation mechanisms formalising a continuum that both navies had treated as two separate theatres.

The Italian projection eastward peaked in 2024 with the deployment of a Carrier Strike Group centred on ITS Cavour and the frigate ITS Alpino, complemented by the independent deployments of ITS Raimondo Montecuccoli and the training ship ITS Amerigo Vespucci.[19] The five-month deployment crossed the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean, with port calls in ten countries and a joint exercise with the Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya and its air wing in October 2024. The Cavour deployment marked the first Italian carrier presence in the Indo-Pacific and translated the doctrinal notion of the Enlarged Mediterranean into operational reality, thereby merging the Mediterranean with the Indo-Pacific as a shared strategic theatre.

The reciprocal Indian projection into the Mediterranean follows a parallel logic. In August 2025, the Indian stealth frigate INS Tamal called at Naples and conducted a PASSEX with the Italian Landing Helicopter Dock ITS Trieste.[20] In September 2025, INS Trikand called at Taranto during its Mediterranean deployment and participated in Exercise Bright Star 2025 in Egypt – a US Central Command-led multilateral exercise involving Egypt, the United States, Italy, India, and others, thereby materially anchoring Indo-Italian maritime cooperation within a wider regional security architecture.[21] Earlier engagements, including the 2023 Passing Exercise between ITS Francesco Morosini and INS Sumedha off Sardinia, indicate that reciprocity has been a pattern since the early 2020s, rather than an isolated phenomenon.

Beneath these high-profile deployments lies a denser layer of routine cooperation: humanitarian and disaster-relief coordination, anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, and information exchange on maritime domain awareness. The institutional scaffolding was formalised in May 2026, when the Special Strategic Partnership introduced a bilateral Dialogue on Maritime Security and committed both governments to examining a feasibility framework for an annual, high-level, structured military dialogue.[22] Crucially, naval cooperation has now developed a distinctive industrial spine. Fincantieri’s long-standing partnership with Cochin Shipyard on Indian Navy fleet renewal, together with its subsidiary WASS’s ₹2,000 crore contract for Black Shark Advanced heavyweight torpedoes to equip India’s Kalvari-class submarines, signal that maritime interoperability is being embedded in shared production, technology transfer, and long-term rather than episodic industrial commitments.[23]

Industrial & technological architecture

Indo-Italian positioning across the corridor’s economic and technological layers has advanced considerably faster than the corridor itself. At the corridor’s Mediterranean exit, Adani’s 2023 acquisition of a controlling stake in Haifa Port established an Indian commercial presence where the northern land route returns to the sea. In February 2026, Adani Ports signed an MoU with the Port of Marseille Fos, explicitly framed around IMEC, proposing an “IMEC Ports Club” to coordinate ports along the route – Indian economic positioning convening the corridor’s European harbours.[24]

Italy has, in Trieste, a strong structural candidate for the corridor’s European terminus. Trieste is the northernmost Mediterranean port directly linked by rail to central Europe, and its free-port status allows goods to be stored and re-exported without entering EU customs territory. Rome sought to turn this into a strategic claim, appointing Ambassador Francesco Maria Talò as Italy’s IMEC special envoy in April 2025, one of only two appointments among the eight signatories. Indo-Italian efforts converged at an IMEC forum in March 2026, hosted in Trieste by Deputy PM Tajani and attended by India’s Deputy NSA Pavan Kapoor, to advance the Indo-Mediterranean strategy.[25] Though Trieste has unique advantages, it is a contested terminal, with France pushing for Marseille and Piraeus weakened by Chinese majority ownership.[26]

The digital layer is the corridor’s only functioning trans-regional infrastructure, jointly owned. Sparkle, in strategic partnership with Airtel, activated the Blue-Raman cable between India and Genoa, which is deeply embedded within the IMEC digital corridor.[27] Its routing bypasses the Egyptian chokepoint through which most Europe-Asia data has historically passed and stands against China’s PEACE cable, which bypasses India entirely, running from Gwadar to Djibouti up the Red Sea.[28] While the corridor’s overland segment remains politically foreclosed, data already flows along its projected geography, and the standards governing that traffic, like routing, interoperability, and data governance, are being bilaterally shaped now.

The corridor’s physical spine, meanwhile, has advanced unevenly and largely outside collective direction: Saudi Arabia’s north–south railway reached the Jordanian border at Al-Haditha in March 2026; the northern land bridge’s key prerequisite, built on national grounds rather than under an IMEC mandate. Beneath the corridor-specific machinery lies the commercial rationale that sustains it. Bilateral trade reached 14.25 billion euros in 2025, making Italy India’s fourth-largest EU trading partner. The May 2026 Summit set a 20 billion euros target for 2029, pending implementation of the India-EU FTA, which ensured demand for the corridor. The two also agreed to convene an IMEC Ministerial in 2026, alongside a Defence Industrial Roadmap committing both sides to co-production and a critical minerals MoU — supply-chain instruments for a corridor conceived to carry resilient trade rather than volume alone.[29] Energy follows the same logic, with jointly funded green hydrogen research linking India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission to Italy’s position as Europe’s southern energy gateway.[30] Thus, influence and agenda-setting power here precede freight; whoever supplies continuity to the strategic corridor will potentially shape construction timelines, financing mechanisms and administrative frameworks, with India and Italy in a position to exploit such opportunities.

From position to strategic influence & recognition

The mechanism’s output can be assessed against three indicators. Access is the most tangible: India holds a controlling commercial position at Haifa, and Italy has secured a carrier-level presence in the Indian Ocean, with reciprocal Indian port calls at Naples and Taranto. Neither state possessed operational reach into the other’s basin a decade ago; each now exercises it at the other’s invitation. Agenda-setting is where the dyad’s advantage is starkest. Of the eight IMEC signatories, only France and Italy have appointed special envoys, and the May 2026 declaration made Rome and New Delhi the visible sponsors of the corridor’s only scheduled collective decision-point. Where there is no secretariat, no financing mechanism and no construction timeline, continuity of political investment substitutes for institutions, and those supplying it shape what the corridor becomes.

Recognition is the most partial and the most instructive. External Affairs Minister Jaishankar invoked the Indo-Mediterranean in Rome in November 2024, eighteen months before the joint op-ed; C. Raja Mohan, writing from Singapore, identified a new Indo-Mediterranean region emerging through connectivity, commerce and geopolitics; and an American proposal for an “IndoMed Quad” comprising the United States, UAE, India and Italy treats the dyad as cornerstone actors in an Indo-Mediterranean order. Meloni’s invitation to the December 2025 GCC Summit and her proposed GCC-MED Summit indicate Gulf acknowledgement of Rome’s bridging role. Yet neither the European Union nor the Gulf states have adopted the term officially, and it has no institutional referent. A named space with two sponsors and no members remains a claim in progress — but the claim is being recognised by others, which is what distinguishes naming from assertion.

Limits and Fragilities

The Indo-Mediterranean is being constructed in an exceptionally hostile regional environment. Between February and July 2026, the corridor’s maritime segment came under sustained pressure at each of its critical junctures. The February 2026 Israeli-American air campaign against Iran, followed by Tehran’s partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz, constrained the corridor’s Gulf gateway.[31] In late July, after a nine-month pause, Houthi forces resumed attacks in the Red Sea, imposed a maritime embargo on shipping to and from Saudi ports, and drove traffic through Bab el-Mandeb down by over a third within days. A suspected Iranian drone strike on a floating LNG unit at the Egyptian port of Damietta then brought the disruption into the Mediterranean itself.[32] Overlaying these acute pressures is a structural one: the halt to Saudi-Israeli normalisation since October 2023, which has effectively frozen IMEC’s projected overland northern segment.[33]

The structural implications are significant. The Indo-Mediterranean, in its IMEC dimension, was conceived as a hedge against precisely the kind of chokepoint disruption that has now materialised on both ends of the corridor simultaneously. Its eastern segment depends on Gulf hubs located beyond Hormuz; its western segment depends on the Red Sea passage under Houthi pressure; and the Mediterranean terminal itself is no longer immune. A corridor designed to circumvent chokepoint risk finds itself materially dependent on the chokepoints most exposed to disruption, while the alternative overland routing remains politically foreclosed.[34]

Three further vulnerabilities qualify the anchors’ agency. First, the corridor’s middle belongs to others: its viability rests on the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt, sovereign actors whose calculations neither Rome nor New Delhi can control, and whose consent no bilateral partnership can substitute. Second, capability constrains ambition — India’s Mediterranean presence remains episodic, and its western port infrastructure is incomplete, while Italy’s naval commitments are stretched across the Enlarged Mediterranean and NATO’s eastern flank, and Rome cannot deliver on trade or customs commitments that lie with Brussels. Third, the partnership rests conspicuously on leadership convergence; personal alignment is an asset that institutions must outlast, and the Joint Strategic Action Plan’s review mechanisms remain young.

Cooperation has nonetheless deepened through the disruption rather than despite it: the elevation to Special Strategic Partnership was agreed while Hormuz was already constrained, the torpedo contract was signed as the Iran conflict escalated, and the Cavour deployment had already crossed the corridor amid active Red Sea hostilities.[35] This suggests the partnership is not contingent on the corridor’s original blueprint. Its viability will instead depend on the anchors’ capacity to co-architect the corridor’s evolution — including alternative routing through Fujairah, Salalah and Duqm outside Hormuz, hardened Mediterranean port infrastructure integrated with the Mattei Plan, and layered supply-chain redundancy under conditions of permanent instability — and on whether adaptive capacity outlasts accumulating stress.

Conclusion

The Indo-Mediterranean is not a region that India and Italy discovered, but a strategic space they are assembling — and the mechanism by which they do so runs from position through doctrine and naming to institutionalisation. Each state’s westward or eastward turn stemmed from domestic recalibration rather than external adaptation: MAHASAGAR and the Enlarged Mediterranean were codified independently and converged only when both governments named the water between them. That naming did work of its own, lowering the diplomatic cost of each navy’s presence in the other’s basin and creating a domain in which the two hold anchor position by definition.

What follows is an influence that does not wait for the corridor to open. In a space with no secretariat, no financing mechanism and no agreed terminus, the states that provide continuity—envoys, ministerial sponsorship, cable routing, port coordination—shape what the corridor becomes. Scott’s under-institutionalised strategic space is, on this reading, not an obstacle to influence but its opportunity structure.

The claim is testable and should be tested. If the first ministerial does not convene, if envoy-level commitment remains confined to Paris and Rome, if the European terminus settles elsewhere, or if the term is not adopted beyond its two sponsors, the anchoring argument fails. What the period since 2023 shows is not that the Indo-Mediterranean has been built, but that two states at its extremities have positioned themselves to determine how it is.

Author Brief Bio:

  • Arnav Joshi is currently pursuing an MA in International Relations at King’s College London, with diverse research interests in Indian foreign policy, middle power politics and role of modern technology like AI in international affairs. He completed his BA in Political Science from St. Xavier’s College (University of Mumbai).
  • Carlo Angrisani is an MA candidate in International Relations at King’s College London, with academic interests in foreign policy analysis, grand strategy, deterrence, and middle power politics. He previously earned a 5-year single-cycle master’s degree in law from the University of Naples Federico II.

Endnotes

[1] David Scott, “The ‘Indo-Mediterranean’: Strategic Space in the Making,” Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies 13, no. 2 (2026): 88–89, https://doi.org/10.2307/JTMS.13.2.87.

[2] Scott, “The ‘Indo-Mediterranean,'” 93, 104–5.

[3] Nicola Casarini, Italy’s Pivot to the Indo-Pacific – Towards a Value-driven Foreign Policy?, IAI Commentaries 23|24 (Istituto Affari Internazionali, May 2023); Fabrizio Coticchia and Matteo Mazziotti di Celso, “Still on the Same Path? Italian Foreign and Defence Policy in the Enlarged Mediterranean,” Mediterranean Politics 30, no. 3 (2025): 650–59, https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2023.2294252; Lorenzo Termine and Giuseppe Natalizia, “Italy’s Indo-Pacific Tilt (2021–2024): Diving into the Determinants of a Security Policy Change,” Contemporary Italian Politics 17, no. 4 (2025): 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2025.2543652; Sudeshna Banerjee and Surendar Singh, “Examining the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) as a Collaborative Infrastructure for Transcontinental Policymaking: An ICIO-LP Analysis,” Asia Europe Journal 22 (2024): 481–506; Priyanshi Agrawal, “Material and Ideational Factors Behind Conceptualisation of the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor,” Strategic Analysis 49, no. 6 (2025): 765–86, https://doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2026.2622789; Grant F. Rhode, “China’s Emergence as a Power in the Mediterranean: Port Diplomacy and Active Engagement,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 32, no. 2 (2021): 394–415, https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2021.1913352.

[4] Gideon Rose, “Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy,” World Politics 51, no. 1 (1998): 144–72; Norrin M. Ripsman, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, and Steven E. Lobell, Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Politics (Oxford University Press, 2016).

[5] On status-seeking in Indian foreign policy, see Rajesh Basrur and Kate Sullivan de Estrada, Rising India: Status and Power (Routledge, 2017); Rohan Mukherjee, Ascending Order: Rising Powers and the Politics of Status in International Institutions (Cambridge University Press, 2022). On Italy’s, see Gabriele Abbondanza and Thomas Wilkins, eds., Awkward Powers: Escaping Traditional Great and Middle Power Theory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

[6] J. Samuel Barkin, “Realist Constructivism,” International Studies Review 5, no. 3 (2003): 325–42; Deborah Welch Larson and Alexei Shevchenko, “Status Seekers: Chinese and Russian Responses to U.S. Primacy,” International Security 34, no. 4 (2010): 63–95.

[7] K. M. Panikkar, India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History (George Allen & Unwin, 1945), 15–16, 90–91.

[8] Anil Trigunayat, “Key Changes in India’s Approach Towards West Asia over the Last Ten Years: From Link West to Act West,” Vivekananda International Foundation, April 30, 2024, https://www.vifindia.org/2024/april/30/Key-Changes-in-India-s-Approach-Towards-West-Asia-over-the-Last-ten-Years.

[9] Durai, Suchitra. “India’s Maritime Vision: From SAGAR to Indo-Pacific to MAHASAGAR.” Articles Commissioned by XPD Division, Embassy of India, Dili, August 13, 2025. https://www.indembassydili.gov.in/section/articles-commissioned-by-xpd-division/india-s-maritime-vision-from-sagar-to-indo-pacific-to-mahasagar-by-amb-suchitra-durai/.

[10] The Paradox of Resilience: IMEC and the Iran Conflict (ORF Middle East, June 25, 2026), https://orfme.org/expert-speak/the-paradox-of-resilience-imec-and-the-iran-conflict/.

[11] Manjari Singh, IMEC as a Strategic Asset: Imperative of Security in a Multi-lateral, Multi-sectoral and Multi-stakeholder Connectivity Corridor, Issue Brief no. 429 (Centre for Land Warfare Studies, April 2025), 5–6; S. Jaishankar, The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World (HarperCollins India, 2020).

[12] Scott, “The ‘Indo-Mediterranean,'” 90.

[13] Marina Militare, “Editoriale: Il Mediterraneo Allargato,” Rivista Marittima, December 2021, https://www.marina.difesa.it/media-cultura/editoria/marivista/Pagine/2021_12_e.aspx; Ministero della Difesa, Documento Programmatico Pluriennale della Difesa 2022–2024 (Rome: Ministero della Difesa, 2022).

[14] MAECI (Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale), Contributo Italiano alla Strategia Europea per l’Indo-Pacifico (Rome: Farnesina, 2022); Abbondanza, “Charting Italy’s Indo-Pacific Strategy,” 47.

[15] Leonardo Termine and Gabriele Natalizia, “Italy’s Indo-Pacific Tilt (2021–2024)”, 2025.

[16] Governo Italiano, “Piano Mattei per l’Africa,” Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 2024, https://www.governo.it/it/piano-mattei; Giovanni Carbone and Lucia Ragazzi, Il Piano Mattei: rilanciare l’Africa policy dell’Italia (Rome: ISPI–Aspen Institute Italia, 2024).

[17] Emanuele Rossi and Valbona Zeneli, “Italy’s ‘Global Mediterranean’ Turns to the Indo-Pacific,” Decode39, January 28, 2026, https://decode39.com/13280/italys-global-mediterranean-turns-to-the-indo-pacific/.

[18] MEA, “India–Italy Joint Statement,” May 20, 2026.

[19] Marina Militare, “Missione Indo-Pacifico 2024 del Carrier Strike Group Cavour” (Rome: Ministero della Difesa, 2024), https://www.marina.difesa.it/.

[20] PIB, “INS Tamal Concludes Port Call at Naples, Italy,” Government of India, August 16, 2025, https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2157270.

[21] PIB, “Indian Navy Ship Trikand visits Taranto, Italy,” Government of India, September 28, 2025, https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2174284.

[22] MEA, “India–Italy Joint Statement,” May 20, 2026.

[23] “Fincantieri and Cochin Shipyard Sign MoU for Indian Navy Fleet Renewal Programme,” Fincantieri press release, October 30, 2020.

[24] Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd., “Adani Ports & SEZ and Port of Marseille Fos Sign Strategic IMEC Partnership to Strengthen India–Europe Trade Connectivity,” media release, February 18, 2026, https://www.adaniports.com/newsroom/media-releases/adani-ports-and-sez-and-port-of-marseille-fos-sign-strategic-imec-partnership.

[25] Consulate General of India, Milan, “India–Italy Bilateral Relations,” https://www.cgimilan.gov.in/page/india-italy-bilateral-relations/; de Luca, “Converging Waters,” 41–42

[26] GIS Reports, “IMEC Could Reshape Europe’s Economic Dynamic,” April 2025.

[27] Consulate General of India, Milan, “India–Italy Bilateral Relations.”

[28] Scott, “The ‘Indo-Mediterranean,'” 99.

[29] Consulate General of India, Milan, “India–Italy Bilateral Relations.”

 PIB, “Prime Minister Meets with Prime Minister of Italy.”

[30] C. Raja Mohan, “India and Europe: The Rise of the Indo-Mediterranean,” ISAS Brief no. 1187 (Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, December 6, 2024), https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/papers/india-and-europe-the-rise-of-the-indo-mediterranean; Emanuele Rossi, “The Case for an IndoMed Quad: India, Italy, UAE, and US Cooperation,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, December 2024, https://www.fpri.org/article/2024/12/the-case-for-an-indomed-quad-india-italy-uae-and-us-cooperation/.

[31] Nicole Grajewski and Ankit Panda, “The Stunning Failure of Iranian Deterrence: And Why It Augurs a More Dangerous World,” Foreign Affairs, March 19, 2026.

[32] Andrew Rugh, “A New Houthi Front and Expanded Iranian Attacks Risk Sinking Gulf Nations’ Choke-Point Workaround and Widening Shipping Risks,” The Conversation, August 3, 2026; “Red Sea Shipping Slows after Houthi Attacks on Saudi Arabia,” The Hill, July 27, 2026; “Houthis Deploy Missiles and Drones to Attack Ships in Southern Red Sea, Naval Group Says,” CNBC, July 22, 2026.

[33] Atlantic Council, A Network of Corridors Is the Only Reliable Hedge Against Middle East Chokepoint Disruptions (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, 2026).

[34] Adam Levitan, Bernard Reich, and Jonathan Rynhold, “From Conflict to Connectivity: IMEC amid Geopolitical Turbulence” (SSRN Working Paper, 2025).

[35] Atlantic Council, A Network of Corridors.

 

The Geopolitics of Proxy Warfare in the Indo-Mediterranean: Security, Connectivity, and Economic Consequences

Abstract

The Indo-Mediterranean region has become a strategic space that connects the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, gaining increasing significance in the geopolitical, economic, and energy sectors and for the resilience of global supply chains. However, the region’s economic and connectivity potential and growth continue to be threatened by an increasing number of proxy wars, state-sponsored armed groups and terrorist organisations. Proxy actors have been used as tools of foreign policy and to advance strategic aims, particularly by regional powers that may not wish to risk direct military action. These have created low-intensity conflicts involving numerous countries and kept the Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia unstable.

The article analyses the impact of proxy networks built through terrorist groups and armed militias on state institutions, maritime security, critical infrastructure, and sea lines of communication (SLOCs), such as the Suez Canal, Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Eastern Mediterranean maritime domain. Insurance rates have risen, global trade and supply lines have been disrupted, and foreign investors in the energy industry are uncertain about the security of their investments due to attacks on commercial shipping, ports, pipelines, and energy infrastructure. The resulting instability has diminished tourism, foreign investment, regional trade, and energy markets, and has lowered the economic potential of the Indo-Mediterranean corridor. The paper states that proxy war is now a structural issue, which poses a threat to regional order, backed by the ideology of extremism, hybrid warfare, cyber warfare and transnational financing of terrorism, and great power rivalry. This makes diplomatic conflict resolution more difficult and undermines efforts to establish cooperative regional security arrangements that could sustain economic integration. Based on recent incidents involving state-sponsored proxy groups in the Levant, the Red Sea, and the Eastern Mediterranean, the research recommends a comprehensive security policy that includes strengthening maritime cooperation, information sharing, counterterrorism cooperation, financial sanctions against state-sponsored proxy groups, and multilateral diplomacy. It views connectivity and infrastructure as key elements of sustainable prosperity in the Indo-Mediterranean, and emphasises the importance of ending the chain of proxy wars that drives instability and hinders long-term development.

Keywords: Indo-Mediterranean; Proxy Warfare; Regional Security; India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC); Global Trade.

Introduction: A New Strategic Continuum

The Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean were long treated as separate theatres for most of the 20th century, linked only by the narrow waterway of the Suez Canal. This division is crumbling. The region is now envisioned as a single strategic corridor, the Indo-Mediterranean, which connects the Indian Ocean and Europe via the Gulf, the Red Sea and the Levant. Policymakers in New Delhi, Rome, Athens, Abu Dhabi and Brussels endorse its development. Italy and India have both described the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor as the fulcrum of this new space. The Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean had long been a single region of exchange, transporting spices, cloth, ideas and religiosity from South Asia to Arabia, the Levant and southern Europe for centuries before the modern era. The novelty of this moment is that governments, not merchants, now seek to institutionalise that continuity through treaties, corridors and defence agreements. It was an organic way of doing business; now it’s a state-sponsored effort in statecraft. Security becomes a high-level policy issue rather than a matter of private risk.

The idea isn’t just a talking point. The economic rationale for the Indo-Mediterranean is the free flow of goods, energy, and data along these trading corridors, covering around 12 per cent of the world’s trade that normally uses the Suez Canal and 15 per cent that goes through the Red Sea. This is exactly what is happening in proxy warfare. What makes the region valuable also makes it fragile: a small share of traffic is concentrated through a few narrow gateways, and a few armed groups can make using them more expensive. This article argues the following three points: First, proxy war in the region is not a transient phenomenon but a fundamental aspect of the region’s security. Second, the economic injury is quantifiable and substantial, and it affects shipping, energy, investment, and connectivity. Third, without a security cooperation architecture in the Indo-Mediterranean region, the promise of an Indo-Mediterranean corridor of connectivity cannot be realised. The analysis is based on incidents documented in the Levant, the Red Sea, and the Eastern Mediterranean from the end of 2023 to July 2026.

Proxy Warfare is a tactic

A proxy war involves using non-state armed groups (or weaker states) to achieve the sponsor’s strategic objectives with minimal direct involvement. It has three attractions. It is less expensive than traditional warfare. It provides deniability, as the sponsor can claim it is not responsible for actions taken by a supposedly independent group. It allows a state to impose costs on a more formidable opponent without triggering the full consequences that would otherwise follow. However, the practice of proxy warfare is not unique to any state, with Iran being the most systematic in West Asia, having established a network of propped-up militias and movements in a corridor stretching from Lebanon to Yemen and from Gaza to Iraq over the past almost 50 years[1].

Regionally, the practice of using armed customers to influence outcomes, to exclude space for competitors, and to bargain with deniability is repeated. This is a persistent conflict, hard to attribute to a sponsor, and hard to stop through traditional diplomatic means, since the sponsor is always a step back from the conflict. The approach also poses a potential risk to the sponsor. A proxy isn’t a wholly subservient machine. It has its own authority, its own incentives, and its own appetite for risk, and the less you control, the more likely it is to do things you didn’t expect. This escalation-control issue lies at the core of proxy warfare. One wrong move by a militia, one wrong ship, or a hit on the wrong rocket, and patrons can find themselves in a fight they didn’t sign up for. The economic impact is a burden on all of us, irrespective of who instigated the attacks, and that’s why the Indo-Mediterranean shouldn’t consider proxy violence as another country’s affair.

The Proxy Landscape After 2024: Weaker but Wilder

This marked an abrupt shift in the Indo-Mediterranean proxy landscape from 2023 to 2026. After the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel systematically attacked its regional partners. In late 2024, a ceasefire was observed in Lebanon following catastrophic losses suffered by Hezbollah, including the deaths of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of its command[2]. The collapse of the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria put an end to the land route that Iran had used to resupply Hezbollah. The government of Bashar al-Assad was defeated by Israel in June 2025[3], and a wider war between Israel, the United States and Iran erupted in late February 2026, with a ceasefire being consolidated through a memorandum of understanding on 14 June 2026[4]. The tightly controlled network of satellites that Tehran once controlled has become a more informal group of players[5]. Some components remain dangerous. The Houthis in Yemen have been the most impactful in the maritime domain, precisely because they are far from Israel and the terrain in Iraq is difficult to neutralise. Their remaining proxies retain their missiles, drones and naval mines, and their smaller control centres make their operating patterns unpredictable and difficult to deter[6].

Chokepoints Under Pressure

The most noticeable example of proxy warfare in the region has been the attack on maritime chokepoints. Many of the world’s largest shipping companies diverted around the Cape of Good Hope[7] to avoid the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which is roughly twenty-nine kilometres wide at its narrowest point. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait had been the target of the campaign since November 2023, when the Houthis launched over a hundred attacks on shipping, including the sinking of at least two vessels and the killing of several seafarers, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza[8]. This has been the pattern since then: pause and relapse, in line with the broader conflict. When the war between Israel, the United States and Iran broke out in late February 2026, the Houthis resumed their attacks, then paused again after the Gaza ceasefire in June 2026[9]. By July 2026, Houthis’ threats against Saudi-associated shipping and an announced naval blockade had once again brought the region to a crisis[10]. The lesson is that the chokepoint risk is now chronic[11]. It always goes up and down with the political tide, but it never goes away entirely. A second front is the Eastern Mediterranean. This uncertainty is a major disincentive to investment in Israel’s offshore gas fields[12], which are projected to produce approximately 4.7 billion cubic metres of gas annually, or a third of the country’s total gas needs[13]. For an energy province Europe had hoped would free it from Russian gas, this insecurity is a clear obstacle to investment. It’s not confined to offshore platforms. Subsea pipelines, export terminals and the modern electric and data cables that criss-cross the Eastern Mediterranean are all soft targets.[14] A proxy can target them with drones or naval mines at low cost. The asymmetry of high costs of infrastructure and low costs of arms is the maritime side of proxy warfare[15]. This is because the major energy companies still invest in the basin despite this shadow, with Chevron approving a new investment in an Israeli gas field in January 2026, indicating the size of the prize and the magnitude of the risk of any disruption that would put it in play[16]. The safety of these assets is thus closely tied to the broader issue of making the Indo-Mediterranean into a reliable energy corridor for Europe.

The Economic Ledger

The economic impact of this instability is neither abstract nor small. It shows up in insurance, rerouting, trade volume, energy, and investment. The first indication is insurance[17]. Before the escalation in mid-2025, war-risk costs for voyages to the southern Red Sea reportedly rose by as much as 60 per cent for ships with strong Saudi connections, not counting additional expenses for fuel, crew, or delays. Redirection exacerbates the burden[18]. The fiscal impact on Egypt has been severe, as the share of east-to-west traffic using the canal has fallen to approximately 18.7 per cent, down from the pre-crisis figure of about 80.2 per cent[19]. After a brief dip in early 2026, the canal’s performance recovered slightly, with revenue climbing to approximately 449 million dollars in the first weeks of 2026, compared with 368 million dollars in the same period of 2025[20], but still well below the previous day’s record[21].

The costs extend beyond transit. Regional uncertainty would deter investment in Eastern Mediterranean gas, and in the ports, pipelines, and connectivity hubs it relies on, and would immediately affect prices if the Bab el-Mandeb Strait closed, cutting off Saudi oil exports to Asia. The disruptions also show in trade volumes. The cost of maritime container transport didn’t fall only on the states along the route; according to data cited by the International Monetary Fund, maritime container transport through the region fell by nearly a third in early 2024 compared with the same period a year earlier, as carriers shied away from the Red Sea. The stigma of being a war zone deters tourism, FDI and regional trade, reinforcing the perception of risk and, in turn, slowing the very development that would make the region more stable. The eventual effect is to weaken the economic dynamism that underpinned the Indo-Mediterranean idea, turning a potent growth centre into a source of global price.

Connectivity at Risk: IMEC and the Indo-Mediterranean Promise

The flagship of the Indo-Mediterranean vision is the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. Eight partners, including the European Union, France, Germany, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, announced it at the G20 summit in New Delhi on 9 September 2023 and regard it as a more secure and diversified alternative to the congested Suez route and China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Indian officials estimate that it could reduce logistics costs by up to 30 per cent and transit time by up to 40 per cent[22]. But the corridor is largely paper-based. It remains in the feasibility and planning stage as of early 2026, while some national projects, like the Gulf rail and port projects, are already underway[23]. It has one major political drawback. The corridor’s “Gulf leg” relies on the cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which has become much more difficult to achieve in the wake of the Gaza war and the wider regional conflict[24].

Another drawback is financial. The European gateways, Trieste and Marseille, are vying to become the Mediterranean landing points for the corridor, and, consequently, the security and connectivity maps converge most closely at these gateways, as all flows will pass through the contested waters discussed above. In this sense, proxy warfare and connectivity are directly linked. No corridor linking the Levant and the Gulf can be funded, insured or completed while the region is in constant turmoil due to proxy attacks. No investor will invest in an infrastructure project that might be the object of a takeover, and no government will risk its political capital on an infrastructure project vulnerable to attack by force[25]. Proxy warfare does not just impede existing commerce. It denies the future architecture envisioned for the Indo-Mediterranean, whose rationale is that the corridor is more of an enabler than a substitute for regional security.

The Structural Turn

The Indo-Mediterranean conflict has moved beyond a few isolated cases to become a structural status quo, aided by several reinforcing mechanisms. Ideological extremism provides a constant supply of recruits and an excuse for violence beyond any single ceasefire. The combination of regular and irregular military operations in hybrid warfare allows sponsors to gauge the force and then disavow responsibility. Cyber operations have broadened the battlefield to ports, shipping systems, and energy grids, where a compromise in the cyber domain can affect physical trade. Finally, external patronage for regional actors will be found in transnational financing, which follows informal circuits and illicit trade, while the probability of international action will be reduced after the disappearance of the Syrian land route from Iran. These mechanisms combine to make proxy conflict a self-propelling mechanism that defies traditional conflict resolution.

Toward a Cooperative Security Architecture

If the conflict is a proxy war, the answer is a proxy war. Five elements are essential, and their value lies in their combination, not in any individual element. The first is cooperation at sea. The Indo-Mediterranean chokepoints are a common interest, and protecting them requires a concerted naval presence, escort arrangements, and rapid response by littoral and user nations. One building block is the evolving partnerships between India and the West of Suez, as described in the emerging partnerships between India and Greece, Cyprus, and Israel, but only if they are grounded in tasks, not symbols[26].

The second is information sharing. Maritime domain awareness (MDA), the real-time monitoring of vessels and threats, can be effective only if shared among navies, coastguards, and commercial operators. A common threat picture also reduces mistaken targeting, which has contributed to higher insurance prices.

The third is counterterrorism coordination. All intelligence on proxy networks, their leadership and logistics should be consolidated, and enforcement should be uniform across jurisdictions to prevent proxy networks from exploiting gaps in the system. The fourth is monetary pressure. Targeted sanctions, together with measures against informal financing and smuggling that support proxy networks, can increase the cost of a proxy model. This tool is evident in the three European states that reimposed U.S., European, and UN sanctions on Iran in August 2025, but its success will depend on enforcement[27].

The fifth is multilateral diplomacy. Symptoms can be controlled through sanctions and naval presence, but only through diplomacy can the underlying political conflicts, foremost the yet-to-be-solved Israeli-Palestinian issue, be resolved, conferring proxies with their cause. The relentless Houthis’ recidivism of their attacks whenever the Gaza ceasefire was violated clearly shows that the maritime issue is intertwined with the political one.

Conclusion

The Indo-Mediterranean indeed holds real promise as a trade, energy, and data link between the Indian Ocean and Europe, with India, the Gulf, and southern Europe as pivot points. This promise is genuine, and it’s reflected in major states’ willingness to invest in it, as with IMEC, an initiative. However, this promise comes with the condition of proxy war. Instability in the Red Sea, pressure on the Eastern Mediterranean, and the paralysis of the IMEC route show that instability in one part of the system increases the costs of the whole system. The clear results, including increased insurance, diverted trade, canal revenue loss and a loss of investment, are not transient events but symptoms of a structural problem.

The connectivity agenda is not the humanitarian side dish to resolving the proxy conflict. It is its prerequisite. Otherwise, the Indo-Mediterranean will remain a corridor of potential rather than prosperity. The argument has a practical twist for India, in particular, which sits at the eastern end of the space and has invested a portion of its economic destiny in going westwards. New Delhi cannot create a secure route to Europe if it does not secure one itself. It is not charity to others; it is an expression of its own growth, driven by its interest in maritime cooperation, stable energy supplies, and open sea lines. The Indo-Mediterranean will finally be made secure – if it is – by the states that most need it to be successful, through mutual action and a shared interest in the stability of the area, not as a favour to be bargained for.

Author Brief Bio: Dr Nanda Kishor M. S. is the Head & Associate Professor at the Department of Politics & International Studies, Pondicherry University.

Endnotes

[1] “Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ Weakened But Still Dangerous,” Stimson Center, January 16, 2025, https://www.stimson.org/2025/irans-axis-of-resistance-weakened-but-still-dangerous/.

[2] “Fracturing the Axis: Degrading and Disrupting Iran’s Proxy Network,” Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), September 2025, https://www.inss.org.il/publication/fracturing-the-axis/.

[3] “Iran’s Network of Proxies ‘Activated’ As Possible War With US Looms,” RFE/RL, February 3, 2026, https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-trump-hezbollah-iraq-huthis/33666970.html.

[4] “Iran’s Proxy Network: Diminished, Dangerous,” The Hill, February 27, 2026, https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5756940-iran-proxy-network-weakens/.

[5] “The Red Sea,” Monthly Forecast, Security Council Report, July 2026, https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/monthly-forecast/2026-07/the-red-sea.php.

[6] The Hill, “Iran’s Proxy Network.”

[7] “War Risk Insurance in 2026: What Ship Owners Need to Know,” Nautilus Shipping, July 2026, https://www.nautilusshipping.com/news-and-insights/war-risk-insurance-in-2026-what-ship-owners-need-to-know.

[8] “Yemen’s Houthis to Only Target Israel-Linked Ships Following Gaza Ceasefire,” Al Jazeera, January 20, 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/20/yemens-houthis-to-only-target-israel-linked-ships-following-gaza-ceasefire.

[9] “Red Sea Corridor Slips Back into Crisis as Houthi Threats Resurface,” gCaptain, April 2026, https://gcaptain.com/red-sea-corridor-slips-back-into-crisis-as-houthi-threats-resurface/.

[10] Security Council Report, “The Red Sea.”

[11] Jonathan Saul, “Red Sea War Insurance Costs Rise After Houthi Blockade, Sources Say,” Insurance Journal, July 21, 2026, https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2026/07/21/878345.htm.

[12] “Israel’s Offshore Gas and the New Maritime Security Frontier,” Middle East Forum, March 9, 2026, https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/israels-offshore-gas-and-the-new-maritime-security-frontier.

[13] “Is Israel’s ‘Buffer Zone’ Inside Lebanon an Attempt to Grab Gas Reserves?,” Al Jazeera, June 12, 2026, https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/6/12/is-israels-buffer-zone-inside-lebanon-an-attempt-to-grab-gas-reserves.

[14] “The Ebbs and Flows of Eastern Mediterranean Gas Politics in 2025,” Policy Center for the New South, February 26, 2025, https://www.policycenter.ma/publications/ebbs-and-flows-eastern-mediterranean-gas-politics-2025.

[15] “War Risk Insurance Costs Surge for Southern Red Sea Voyages After Houthi Attacks,” Insurance Journal, July 23, 2026, https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2026/07/23/878788.htm.

[16] “War Insurance Premium in the Red Sea Increased to 3 Percent,” SeaNews, July 25, 2026, https://www.seanews.com.tr/article/war-insurance-premium-in-the-red-sea-increased-to-3-percent-ms052x8l.

[17] Saleem Khan, “War Risk Insurance Costs Surge: How to Stem the Tide,” Pole Star Global, 2026, https://www.polestarglobal.com/resources/war-risk-insurance-cost/.

[18] “Red Sea Crisis Update: Route Alternatives and Cost Impacts,” Docshipper, March 2026, https://docshipper.com/shipping/red-sea-crisis-update-route-alternatives-cost-impacts/.

[19] “Red Sea Shipping Reopens, but Renewed Houthi Threats Keep Route Uncertainty High,” S&P Global Market Intelligence, February 2026, https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/research/2026/02/red-sea-shipping-reopens.

[20] “Suez Canal Revenue Down $10bn Due to Regional Conflicts,” AGBI, March 2026, https://www.agbi.com/transport/2026/03/suez-canal-revenue-down-10bn-in-regional-conflict/; and “Egypt Incurs Losses of about $10.5 Billion in Suez Canal Revenues,” EgyptToday, July 4, 2026, https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/3/148162/Egypt-incurs-losses-of-about-10-5-billion-in-Suez.

[21] “Egypt’s Suez Canal Revenue Fell Sharply in 2024 on Regional Tensions” (Suez Canal Authority figures), Yahoo News, 2025, https://www.yahoo.com/news/egypts-suez-canal-revenue-fell-105608471.html.

[22] “IMEC to Reduce Logistics Costs by up to 30% and Transportation Time by 40%: Piyush Goyal,” IMEC International, accessed August 2026, https://www.imec.international/news-press-release/.

[23] Afaq Hussain, “The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor: Connectivity in an Era of Geopolitical Uncertainty,” Atlantic Council, November 2025, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/the-india-middle-east-europe-economic-corridor-connectivity-in-an-era-of-geopolitical-uncertainty/.

[24] “IMEC: The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor Explained,” The Middle East Insider, February 27, 2026, https://themiddleeastinsider.com/2026/04/16/imec-india-middle-east-europe-corridor/.

[25] “The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor,” Middle East Institute, June 5, 2026, https://mei.edu/backgrounder/the-india-middle-east-europe-economic-corridor/.

[26] “Conceptualising a ‘Mediterranean Arc’: A Functional Framework for Maritime Cooperation between India, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel,” National Maritime Foundation, April 11, 2026, https://maritimeindia.org/conceptualising-a-mediterranean-arc-a-functional-framework-for-maritime-cooperation-between-india-greece-cyprus-and-israel/.

[27] “Iran: The End of the Axis and Strategic Adaptation,” Reset DOC, 2026, https://www.resetdoc.org/story/iran-end-axis-strategic-adaptation/.

 

The Indo-Mediterranean: Recovering India’s Historical Western Horizon

Introduction

Contemporary discussions of the Indo-Mediterranean often present it as a novel geopolitical construct emerging from initiatives such as the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). This paper argues instead that the Indo-Mediterranean is the re-emergence of an older civilisational and maritime geography, in which the Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and Mediterranean formed an interconnected commercial and cultural network, with India as one of its principal nodes.

This geography receded from Indian strategic thought not merely because trade routes changed, but through successive strategic and conceptual disruptions. Continental volatility redirected political attention towards land defence, while European naval powers displaced indigenous Bhāratīya control of its maritime space. Colonial cartography universalised territorial categories while marginalising native frameworks of connectivity, a manifestation of what Rajiv Malhotra calls Western Universalism. Partition and subsequent security pressures reinforced this orientation, recasting West Asia from an extended maritime neighbourhood into a region viewed primarily in terms of energy, diaspora and crisis management.

IMEC should therefore be situated within the reconstitution of an Indo-Mediterranean strategic continuum rather than understood only as infrastructure or great-power competition. Viewed through this lens, India is not merely a participant but a civilisational connector whose future role depends on shaping connectivity between the Indian Ocean, West Asia and Europe.

Our paper comprises three sections. The first examines ancient Indian Ocean maritime traditions using archaeological and textual evidence. The second discusses the decline of this maritime focus in India’s strategic thinking and its impact on the IMEC. Finally, we frame the Indo-Mediterranean strategic shift as a revival of India’s historical western horizon, aligned with current geostrategic realities.

Ancient Indian Ocean Region Maritime Networks: Maritime Orientation of Northwestern India

Lothal, in present-day Gujarat, exemplifies the Harappan cultural sphere’s maritime orientation and the active trade in the region during that period. The Archaeological Survey of India describes the site as “a Harappan port town” in its excavation report, reflecting its maritime centrality.[1] Lothal, Dholavira, Kuntasi, and other centres in Gujarat linked inland production zones to the Gulf of Kutch, the Makran coast in Iran, Oman, Bahrain, and southern Mesopotamia. Etched carnelian beads, produced using specialised South Asian techniques and recovered across the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia, indicate organised, repeated exchange rather than chance contact.

Mesopotamian cuneiform texts from the Akkadian and Ur III periods distinguish Meluhha, Magan and Dilmun as distinct participants in Gulf trade, identifying Meluhha with the Indus Civilisation on the basis of textual, archaeological and material evidence.[2] Mesopotamian records refer to Meluhhan ships, merchants, and even an interpreter of the Meluhhan language, indicating direct commercial interaction rather than merely indirect exchange via intermediaries.[3] Evidence from the 3rd millennium BCE shows that Meluhhan ships reached Mesopotamian ports, and some Meluhhans lived in Sumer. Harappan seals found at Ur, Susa, Tell Asmar, and other Mesopotamian sites, together with Mesopotamian artefacts in Harappan settlements, highlight reciprocal exchange.[4]

Indigenous Navigational Knowledge

The traditional Western narrative that a Greek navigator named Hippalus “discovered” the monsoon is not a literal account of how navigation in the Arabian Sea began. Communities around the Indian Ocean had observed seasonal wind patterns long before Greek and Roman authors documented them. Indian, Arabian, and Gulf sailors were already navigating routes based on their understanding of seasonal winds, ocean currents, coastal landmarks, water sources, and optimal sailing conditions.[5]

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea reflects this established maritime knowledge and identifies Barygaza (Bharuch), linked to inland production centres via the Narmada, as a major port. Together with Barbarikon, Sopara, Kalyan, and ports along the Konkan and Malabar coasts, it formed a coastal network that gathered and redistributed goods before they passed through Arabia and Egypt..[6]

Indian Merchants at Socotra and Epigraphic Evidence in Egypt

The Hoq Cave inscriptions on the strategic island of Socotra in Yemen provide direct evidence of Indian travellers at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden. Predominantly written in Indian scripts, especially Brahmi, they record the names, origins, and affiliations of visitors who used the island as a stopover between western India, southern Arabia, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions from Quseir al-Qadim, the ancient Red Sea port of Myos Hormos, and Berenike likewise establish the presence of Tamil-speaking travellers in Roman Egypt, while inscriptions in the Valley of the Kings indicate movement beyond coastal trading settlements into the Nile-Red Sea corridor.[7],[8],[9] Findings from Bahrain, Oman, Mesopotamia, Failaka Island, and Berenike indicate that Red Sea ports were major contact zones linking South Asian trade to the Roman, Arab, and African worlds.[10],[11],[12]

The Muziris Papyrus also shows that commerce between southern India and Egypt was supported by credit, contracts, taxation, cargo assessment, and institutional enforcement. One side contains part of a loan agreement financing a commercial enterprise linked to southern India; the other records the fiscal valuation of a cargo imported aboard the vessel Hermapollon.[13] These transactions involved a range of stakeholders, including capital providers, shipowners, merchants, cargo agents, customs officials, warehouse operators, and purchasers.

The Indo-Mediterranean trade formed a network of institutions linking Indian production centres to coastal emporia, with sea routes connecting Arabia, Egypt, Alexandria, and Mediterranean markets. Indian merchants and sailors linked the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea, demonstrating that the Indian subcontinent played an active role in trade rather than merely serving as an endpoint of Mediterranean expansion.[14]

Indian perspectives

Ancient Indian textual traditions treated maritime activity not as peripheral or exceptional, but as an integral component of statecraft, commerce, and political geography. The Arthaśāstra assigns the Navādhyakṣa (Superintendent of Ships) responsibility for ships, ports, ferries, navigation, customs, and maritime trade, presenting the sea as a regulated economic space through which goods, merchants, and revenue moved under state supervision. The Arthaśāstra regards the western sea (apara samudra) as part of the state’s commercial geography. [15]

Sangam literature offers another important indigenous southern Indian perspective. Poems describe Yavana (Ionian) merchants arriving by sea, bringing gold and wine and purchasing pepper and other valuable commodities from ports such as Kaveripattanam (Puhar).[16] The Akanānūru and Puranānūru references to foreign gold mirror Pliny the Elder’s well-known complaints about Roman bullion flowing eastward. Although independent, the Tamil poems and Pliny together offer valuable evidence of the trade connections between southern India and the Roman world.[17] The Chera, Chola and Pandya polities are portrayed as maritime kingdoms whose prosperity and prestige depended in part on ports, merchant activity and overseas exchange. The Pattinappālai presents maritime exchange as a defining feature of urban life on the Tamil coast.[18], [19]

More broadly, Indian texts generally described the western world through peoples—Yavana-s, Pārasīka-s, Śaka-s, Bāhlika-s and Kamboja-s—rather than as a bounded “Mediterranean” region. The argument advanced here is not that premodern Indian sources possessed a concept equivalent to the modern term “Indo-Mediterranean.” Rather, “Indo-Mediterranean” is employed as a contemporary analytical category for a historically demonstrable geography of interaction that modern regional classifications subsequently divided into the Indian Ocean, West Asia and the Mediterranean. The cumulative evidence presents the Arabian Sea and its western extensions as a historically layered commercial continuum, linked by repeated voyages, resident merchant communities, transferable financial practices, intermediary ports and inland transport corridors. India was therefore not a passive endpoint of Mediterranean expansion but an active centre, with ports, merchants and producers helping to shape the wider western Indian Ocean economy. [20]

Why this Geography disappeared from India’s Strategic Consciousness

The Indo-Mediterranean region, despite its historical significance, became less prominent in India’s strategic outlook as political disruptions shifted focus from maritime to continental security. Over several centuries, recurrent pressures on the subcontinent’s northwestern approaches increasingly competed with maritime priorities for the attention of major political formations; European expansion subsequently transformed this imbalance by progressively transferring coercive control of the sea to European powers. The emergence of the modern territorial state further consolidated this transformation in three key stages.

The first major transformation began in the 11th century with successive waves of incursions by Turco-Afghan, Persian, and Central Asian forces. The Indo-Gangetic plain and the northwestern frontier became key arenas of political competition, prompting states to prioritise cavalry, fortifications, and continental empires over maritime commerce. While ports such as Cambay and Surat remained active, maritime influence in state strategy diminished.

European expansion brought significant changes in its second stage, as the Portuguese, Dutch and British sought to control commerce through naval power, fortified ports and monopolistic companies. While Indian merchants remained active, maritime security and political authority shifted to European powers, diminishing Indian strategic control over the western Indian Ocean, which remained a trading space.

The final stage of this process occurred during British colonial rule, which reinforced geopolitical realities through new intellectual frameworks. Colonial governance required viewing India as a territorial possession, thereby transforming both its understanding and its governance.[21] British cartography transformed India into a bounded territorial entity, emphasising measurable space over historical networks of interaction.[22] The governance framework increasingly emphasised provinces, districts, borders, and territorial sovereignty. Maritime spaces, once seen as connectors, became imperial boundaries. A Western Universalist shift occurred as European ideas about maritime trade, sovereignty, and authority were regarded as universally valid.

Independent India inherited this framework under severe pressure. Partition, the Kashmir issue, refugee rehabilitation, princely-state integration, the 1962 war with China, repeated wars with Pakistan, and ongoing border disputes made continental defence a rational priority. Indian strategic thought naturally prioritised territorial integrity, border management, and conventional military threats, as these posed the principal dangers to the state’s survival.

This historical experience also reveals a subtler consequence: political sovereignty does not automatically restore the native conceptual frameworks through which a civilisation understands itself. Genuine sovereignty extends beyond political independence to encompass the recovery of intellectual frameworks through which a civilisation interprets its history, geography and strategic priorities. These frameworks determine which spaces, relationships and problems appear strategically important; their persistence can therefore shape national priorities long after formal colonial rule has ended.[23]

Applied to India’s western maritime horizon, this perspective suggests that the gradual disappearance of the Indo-Mediterranean from strategic consciousness reflected not only changing geopolitical circumstances but also a shift in the conceptual language through which geography itself was understood. The Arabian Sea increasingly appeared as India’s western boundary, while West Asia was approached primarily through energy security, labour migration, expatriate welfare, and regional crises, rather than as an extended maritime neighbourhood. While these concerns remain strategically important, they represent a significantly different conception of India’s relationship with the region. West Asia came to be understood as an external geopolitical theatre rather than as part of an extended maritime neighbourhood historically connected to the subcontinent through dense networks of exchange.[24]

Understanding this historical trajectory is essential to interpreting contemporary developments, such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). IMEC should not be seen as a new geopolitical region or as a response to contemporary great-power competition in the region, but rather as a revival of an older maritime geography whose strategic importance was overshadowed by history.

It requires recognising that India’s strategic geography has always been both territorial and civilisational, continental and maritime. The Indo-Mediterranean is best understood not as an invented geopolitical construct but as the contemporary reappearance of a much older civilisational space, whose historical coherence is once again becoming strategically visible.

The Return of the Indo-Mediterranean: From Spice Route to Smart Corridor

Recovering a Bhāratīya maritime perspective is not an exercise in nostalgia or in recreating antiquity, but in adapting enduring geographic realities to contemporary strategy. As the global economic centre of gravity shifts towards Asia, the Indian Ocean is once again becoming the connective space linking major centres of production, energy, and consumption. Maritime transport carries over 80% of global trade by volume, and vulnerabilities in the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the Strait of Hormuz highlight the Indo-Mediterranean region’s influence on global supply chains, energy flows, and industrial production.[25]

IMEC should be understood in light of this structural context. The 2023 Memorandum of Understanding explicitly envisages an eastern corridor linking India to the Arabian Gulf and a northern corridor linking the Gulf to Europe. Crucially, its proposed infrastructure extends beyond conventional cargo: alongside ports and railways, participants envisage electricity and digital connectivity cables, as well as infrastructure for the export of clean hydrogen.[26] IMEC is more than a transport route; it forms an economic geography that connects India, the Gulf and Europe across various strategic domains.

The older Indian Ocean networks transported high-value commodities such as pepper, textiles, and gemstones. In contrast, the emerging Indo-Mediterranean network is likely to encompass pharmaceuticals, electronics, digital services, clean energy, critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, and artificial intelligence-related technologies. Commodities and infrastructure change, but geography remains – the Spice Route becomes a Smart Corridor. The Arabian Sea, the Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean serve as vital links for India to access European markets and connect Gulf production with European consumption.

This is particularly important in an international system that is becoming increasingly multipolar. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has argued that “multipolarity is here to stay”, noting that no single country now possesses hegemonic capabilities across all domains and that different regions will increasingly contribute distinct forms of power and capability.[27] If this diagnosis is correct, multipolarity requires a corresponding physical architecture, not merely a description of power distribution. IMEC is a key element of the Indo-Mediterranean architecture that underpins a multipolar order, requiring multiple centres of production, finance and technology. Essential infrastructure, such as railways, ports, energy grids and digital networks, facilitates trade and communication while reducing reliance on any single external provider. Such infrastructure shapes how states access markets, technologies and information, potentially creating strategic dependence even while formal political sovereignty is maintained.

Global supply-chain disruptions highlight the risks of relying on limited transport routes. Disruptions in the Red Sea and at the Suez Canal have led to higher freight costs and longer shipping routes. In 2023, about 22% of global seaborne container trade passed through the Suez Canal, but subsequent security issues prompted significant rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope.[28] The Strait of Hormuz remains a critical maritime chokepoint, highlighting how energy vulnerabilities have shifted resilience and diversification from commercial efficiency to national strategy.

IMEC’s strategic value lies in the options it creates, enhancing rather than replacing existing maritime routes. The IMEC memorandum emphasises a proposed ship-to-rail network to strengthen regional supply chains alongside current routes.[29] Diversifying infrastructure enables states to handle disruptions more effectively, select alternative routes and partners, and reduce dependence on a single logistics system.

This directly aligns with India’s longstanding preference for strategic autonomy. In a multipolar world, strategic autonomy cannot rest solely on diplomatic freedom of manoeuvre; it increasingly requires infrastructural freedom of manoeuvre. A state whose critical supply chains, digital connectivity, energy flows or access to markets depend overwhelmingly on infrastructure controlled by others has less practical autonomy than its formal sovereignty might suggest. By participating in the creation of interoperable and diversified connectivity across the Indo-Mediterranean, India and its partners can expand their strategic options without requiring political alignment into rigid blocs.

Conclusion

The relevance of India’s civilisational memory lies precisely in its capacity to illuminate the future rather than to reproduce the past. We interpret this movement towards IMEC as part of a broader decolonising process and a recovery of India’s historical understanding of its western maritime geography. This recovery entails distinguishing between adopting the institutions of the modern international system and regarding the conceptual frameworks from which they originated as universally applicable. Malhotra’s critique of Western Universalism is valuable in this context, not primarily because it explains the historical Indo-Mediterranean—which stands firm on the textual, archaeological, and commercial evidence analysed in this paper—but because it offers a lens through which we can understand its subsequent conceptual marginalisation. Political decolonisation did not automatically lead to the revitalisation of indigenous frameworks that shaped India’s understanding of its own geography. Thus, reclaiming the Indo-Mediterranean is not about dismissing modern geopolitics; rather, it’s about expanding India’s strategic imagination beyond the categories derived from a specific European historical experience.

India’s strategic task is therefore not to reconstruct an ancient maritime order, but to recognise that an old geography has taken on new technological and geopolitical significance. IMEC offers a contemporary expression of that geography, but the broader opportunity lies in reclaiming India’s western maritime horizon as a coherent strategic space. In a multipolar order, India’s ability to act as a civilisational and geographic connector will depend not only on participating in corridors designed around it, but on developing the intellectual, diplomatic and material capacity to shape the architecture linking the Indian Ocean, West Asia, and Europe. The return of the Indo-Mediterranean is therefore not a return to the past, but the recovery of an old geography for a new strategic age.

Author Brief Bio:

  • Manogna Sastry is Team Leader, Research, and Senior Research Fellow at Infinity Foundation. With an educational background and strong grounding in theoretical physics and mathematics, her research spans astrophysics, Indology, civilisational and consciousness studies, sustainability, and education. She brings scientific rigour to reinterpreting historical and civilisational paradigms from non-dominant perspectives.
  • Subhodeep Mukhopadhyay is Senior Research Fellow at Infinity Foundation.

Endnotes

[1] S. R. Rao, Lothal: A Harappan Port Town, 1955–62, vol. 1, Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India 78 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1979); Ekta Gupta, V. N. Prabhakar, and Vikrant Jain, “Sabarmati and Its Connection with the Harappan Port Lothal and the Nal Corridor: A Study Using Multi-Sensor Data, Cloud-Computing and Multi-Platforms,” Journal of Archaeological Science 170 (2024): 106028.

[2] Gregory L. Possehl, The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2002), 215–23; Daniel T. Potts, The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 1, From Prehistory to the Fall of the Achaemenid Empire(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 119–45.

[3] Potts, Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, 1:128–40; Asko Parpola, Deciphering the Indus Script (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 140–46.

[4] Possehl, Indus Civilization, 219–25; Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 96–103; S. Kalyanaraman, Indus Script: Meluhha Metalwork Hieroglyphs (Chennai: Sarasvati Research Center, 2014).

[5] K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Himanshu Prabha Ray, The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Periplus Maris Erythraei 44–49.

[6] Periplus Maris Erythraei 1–66, in Lionel Casson, trans. and comm., The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989); Periplus 19–36, 39–60.

[7] Ingo Strauch, ed., Foreign Sailors on Socotra: The Inscriptions and Drawings from the Cave Hoq (Bremen: Hempen Verlag, 2012); Eivind Heldaas Seland, “Archaeology of Trade in the Western Indian Ocean, 300 BC–AD 700,” Journal of Archaeological Research 22, no. 4 (2014): 367–402. The majority of Indian inscriptions at Hoq Cave are written in Brahmi, indicating participation by travellers from multiple regions of the Indian subcontinent rather than a single locality.

[8] Roberta Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade: From Pots to Pepper (London: Duckworth, 2008); Iravatham Mahadevan, Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. (Cambridge, MA: Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, 2003); Donald S. Whitcomb and Janet H. Johnson, eds., Quseir al-Qadim 1980: Preliminary Report (Malibu, CA: Undena Publications, 1982).

[9] Steven E. Sidebotham, Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011); Strabo, Geography 17.1.13.

[10] Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 152–60; Massimo Vidale, “Growing in a Foreign World: For a History of the ‘Meluhha Villages’ in Mesopotamia in the 3rd Millennium BC,” in Melammu Symposia IV: Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project, ed. A. Panaino and A. Piras (Milan: Università di Bologna and IsIao, 2004), 261–80.

[11] Sidebotham, Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route, 189–94; René T. J. Cappers, Roman Foodprints at Berenike: Archaeobotanical Evidence of Subsistence and Trade in the Eastern Desert of Egypt (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, 2006); Seland, “Archaeology of Trade,” 367–402.

[12] Eivind Seland, “Archaeology of Trade,” 367–402 Journal of Archaeological Research (2014); Jeremy A. Simmons, “Behind Gold for Pepper: The Players and the Game of Indo-Mediterranean Trade,” Journal of Global History 18, no. 2 (2023): 276–99..

[13] Federico De Romanis, The Indo-Roman Pepper Trade and the Muziris Papyrus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020); Grant Parker, The Making of Roman India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); P. J. Cherian, ed., Pattanam Excavations (Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Council for Historical Research), relevant excavation reports.

[14] Eivind Heldaas Seland, “Networks and Social Cohesion in Ancient Indian Ocean Trade: Geography, Ethnicity, Religion,” Journal of Global History 8, no. 3 (2013): 373–90; Simmons, “Behind Gold for Pepper,” 276–99.

[15] Kauṭilya, Arthaśāstra 2.21, 2.28–29; R. P. Kangle, The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, 3 vols. (Bombay: University of Bombay, 1960–65); Patrick Olivelle, trans., King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India: Kautilya’s Arthashastra (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Ray, Archaeology of Seafaring.

[16] Pattinappālai; K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar, 4th ed. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1975); George L. Hart III, The Poems of Ancient Tamil: Their Milieu and Their Sanskrit Counterparts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975); R. Champakalakshmi, Trade, Ideology and Urbanization: South India 300 BC to AD 1300 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996).

[17] Akanānūru; Puranānūru; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 12.84; Sastri, History of South India; R. Gurukkal, Rethinking Classical Indo-Roman Trade: Political Economy of Eastern Mediterranean Exchange Relations (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016).

[18] M. Shanmugam Pillai, trans., Maduraikkāñci, in The Ten Tamil Idylls (Pattuppāṭṭu) (Thanjavur: Tamil University, 1995); Vimala Begley, ed., The Ancient Port of Arikamedu: New Excavations and Researches 1989–1992, 2 vols. (Pondicherry: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1996).

[19] Hart, Poems of Ancient Tamil; Gurukkal, Rethinking Classical Indo-Roman Trade; Pattinappālai; Akanānūru; Puranānūru.

[20] Himanshu Prabha Ray, The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia; R. Champakalakshmi, Trade, Ideology and Urbanization.

[21] Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).

[22] Matthew H. Edney, Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765–1843 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

[23] Manogna Sastry, remarks in “Who Shapes India’s Self-Understanding?,” panel discussion, Indraprastha Cultural Festival, New Delhi, August 5, 2026, video, Infinity Foundation.

[24] David M. Malone, C. Raja Mohan, and Srinath Raghavan, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Shivshankar Menon, Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2016).

[25] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Review of Maritime Transport 2025 (Geneva: United Nations, 2025).

[26] Government of India, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, European Union, French Republic, Federal Republic of Germany, Italian Republic, and United States of America, “Memorandum of Understanding on the Principles of an India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor,” September 9, 2023.

[27] S. Jaishankar, remarks at the Raisina Dialogue, New Delhi, March 6, 2026.

[28] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Navigating Troubled Waters: Impact to Global Trade of Disruption of Shipping Routes in the Red Sea, Black Sea and Panama Canal (Geneva: United Nations, 2024).

[29] Government of India et al., “Memorandum of Understanding on the Principles of an India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor.”

 

Chokepoints of the World: How a Handful of Narrow Waters Hold Global Commerce Hostage

Introduction

More than 80 per cent of world trade by volume moves by sea, and almost all of it is forced, at some point, through a small number of narrow passages that geography has turned into strategic bottlenecks. These maritime “chokepoints” — straits, canals, and channels sometimes only a few kilometres wide — carry oil tankers, container ships, and bulk carriers past coastlines controlled by a handful of states, non-state militias, or under contested territorial claims. Unlike most infrastructure vulnerabilities, chokepoints cannot easily be hardened, rerouted cheaply, or replaced; a port can be rebuilt in a few years, but a strait cannot be moved. That immovability is what makes them potent instruments of coercion, and why control over them — formal or informal — has been a preoccupation of naval powers since the age of sail.

When a chokepoint closes or even slows, the effects ripple out within days: freight rates spike, insurance premiums soar, fuel prices shift, and supply chains thousands of miles away seize up. A tanker delayed by three weeks does not just cost its owner money; it can leave a refinery short of crude, a power plant short of gas, or a retailer short of inventory during a critical selling season. Because so much of modern trade runs on just-in-time logistics with minimal buffer stock, even a temporary chokepoint disruption can cascade through an economy far faster than the physical distance involved would suggest.

2026 has been a brutal demonstration of this fragility, compressing decades’ worth of chokepoint risk into a single year. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively shut for months by war between the United States, Israel, and Iran — the most severe disruption to Gulf oil shipping since the tanker wars of the 1980s. The Red Sea and Suez Canal corridor, still recovering from the Houthi campaign that began in late 2023, has been rattled by a fresh blockade of Saudi ports. And in the eastern Indian Ocean, India has been quietly building military and commercial muscle around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, precisely because it understands what happens when a rising power loses the ability to watch, and if necessary, contest, a chokepoint like the Strait of Malacca. Layered on top of all this is India’s push for the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), an ambitious attempt to build an entirely new trade route that sidesteps both the most exposed sea lanes and a Chinese network of ports many in New Delhi see as a slow-motion encirclement.

This essay examines four of the world’s most consequential maritime chokepoints — Hormuz, Suez, Malacca, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands overlooking it — alongside IMEC, the corridor designed to reduce India’s exposure to both chokepoint closures and Chinese strategic pressure. Together, they illustrate a single, uncomfortable truth about the modern global economy: its arteries run through a handful of narrow spaces that no single power fully controls.

Why Chokepoints Matter: A Brief Anatomy of Vulnerability

Before turning to the specific cases, it is worth understanding why chokepoints carry such outsized strategic weight relative to their physical size. Three features set them apart from ordinary trade routes. First, they concentrate risk that would otherwise be diffuse: the open ocean offers ships an almost infinite number of paths, whereas a strait offers one, or at most a few. An actor who can credibly threaten it — through mines, missiles, small boats, or simply the assertion of sovereign control — affects a volume of trade wildly disproportionate to their military or economic size. The Houthi movement in Yemen, a lightly resourced non-state actor fighting a civil war, has redirected a meaningful share of world container shipping using little more than drones, small missiles, and speedboats, purely because of its location.

Second, energy chokepoints carry unique macroeconomic power: oil and gas are priced globally and consumed almost everywhere, so a supply shock at Hormuz does not stay local — it shows up in fuel prices in Tokyo, Rotterdam, and Los Angeles within days. Third, the alternatives are almost always inferior, not merely different. Rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope instead of Suez adds roughly two weeks and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel costs; rerouting around Malacca adds distance and is poorly suited to the largest vessels. This asymmetry is precisely what gives states and armed groups near a chokepoint their leverage: they need not block trade outright, only make the alternative expensive enough to hurt.

The Strait of Hormuz: The World’s Oil Tap

The Strait of Hormuz, a waterway barely 33 kilometres wide at its narrowest point between Iran and Oman, is the single most important chokepoint in the global energy system. In 2025, roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne crude and petroleum products, and close to a fifth of global liquefied natural gas, passed through it, feeding refineries and power grids across Asia, Europe, and beyond. No other chokepoint carries a comparable share of a commodity as globally essential as oil, which is why Hormuz has functioned for decades as shorthand in energy markets for worst-case geopolitical risk.

That importance has made Hormuz the epicentre of the most serious chokepoint crisis in decades. Since late February 2026, when a US-Israeli air campaign against Iran escalated into open war — including the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader — Iran has treated the strait as a weapon of retaliation. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued blanket warnings that no ship was permitted to pass, laid sea mines, and boarded and attacked merchant vessels it deemed non-compliant. The toll has been severe: a tugboat sunk, more than a dozen merchant ships damaged or abandoned, two vessels captured, more than a dozen seafarers killed or missing, and port workers killed in strikes on Bahrain. The United States, in turn, imposed a naval blockade on Iran, launched an aerial campaign against Iranian missile sites and mine-laying vessels, and organised escort operations to help commercial ships navigate the strait safely.

What makes the Hormuz crisis particularly instructive is its resistance to diplomatic resolution. A ceasefire and memorandum of understanding reached in spring 2026 briefly promised to reopen the strait, but conflict resumed by midsummer as Iranian forces attacked shipping deemed non-compliant. By August, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council had set out sweeping conditions for reopening the waterway: an end to the US naval blockade and sanctions, withdrawal of American forces, war reparations, and a halt to US strikes on Iran’s regional allies. Gulf states have responded by forming new defence arrangements among themselves, including a “Mecca Joint Defence Pact,” reflecting recognition that no single country’s navy can now guarantee safe passage.

The economic outcome has been exactly what energy officials feared: fuel shortages in parts of Asia, sharply higher shipping and insurance costs, and — as the head of the International Energy Agency warned in mid-2026 — a broader threat to global energy security that will persist as long as the Strait remains a war zone rather than a normal commercial waterway. Hormuz is, in short, a reminder that even the most heavily patrolled chokepoint in the world can be closed by a determined regional power willing to accept enormous economic self-harm to do so.

The Suez Canal and the Red Sea: Commerce Under Fire

If Hormuz is the world’s oil tap, the Suez Canal is its trade artery — the shortest sea link between Asia and Europe, saving ships a multi-week detour around the Cape of Good Hope and carrying around 12 per cent of global trade in a normal year. The canal’s vulnerability lies not in the 193-kilometre ditch itself, which is well defended and entirely under Egyptian control, but in its approaches: the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a passage between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, within range of missiles and drones launched from Yemeni territory.

The Houthi campaign, which began in November 2023 and was ostensibly in solidarity with Gaza, showed how a lightly armed non-state actor could impose costs on global trade far beyond its size. It began with the seizure of the cargo ship Galaxy Leader and rapidly escalated into a sustained campaign against commercial shipping linked, in the Houthis’ judgment, to Israel, the United States, or their allies. More than a hundred merchant vessels have been targeted, several ships have been sunk or seized, and at least a dozen seafarers have been killed. The disruption to trade was immediate and severe: container traffic through Suez collapsed from roughly 80 ships a week before the crisis to as few as 26 by early 2026, as major carriers — Maersk prominent among them — rerouted their Asia-Europe services around the Cape of Good Hope, incurring hundreds of millions of dollars in losses along the way.

Traffic began to recover in early 2026 as attacks paused for roughly three months, and new infrastructure — including a semi-automated container terminal at Egypt’s Sokhna Port — was built in anticipation of a full reopening. But the respite proved temporary. In July 2026, the Houthis announced a blockade on vessels calling at Saudi Arabian ports, warning that any vessel calling at ports within their operational reach could be sanctioned or targeted. Weekly transits through the Bab el-Mandeb, which had climbed to their highest levels since December 2023 as confidence returned, fell sharply again — mainstream tanker traffic dropped by more than 40 per cent within a week. Saudi Arabia responded by increasing exports through its Red Sea port of Yanbu by roughly fivefold, and by using the Sumed pipeline to move crude overland around the most exposed stretch of water, since a fully laden supertanker cannot transit Suez without first offloading part of its cargo.

The lesson of the Red Sea crisis is that a chokepoint’s security depends not only on the chokepoint itself but also on the political stability of every coastline within missile range— and that instability can be imported from a conflict, such as Gaza or the wider Iran standoff, that has nothing directly to do with shipping. It also illustrates the interconnection between the chokepoints examined here: the same Iran-aligned Houthi movement waging war on Red Sea shipping is itself a proxy actor in the broader confrontation at Hormuz, so the two crises have at times moved in tandem, with each escalation in one theatre raising the risk of escalation in the other.

The Strait of Malacca: Asia’s Indispensable Corridor

Between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, the Strait of Malacca funnels an estimated 25–30 per cent of global trade and nearly half of the world’s seaborne oil through a stretch of water so narrow — under 3 kilometres at its tightest point, the Phillips Channel — that it is one of the most severe bottlenecks in international shipping. More than 90,000 vessels transit it each year, making it, by traffic volume, arguably the busiest chokepoint on earth. It carries oil from the Persian Gulf towards China, Japan, and South Korea, and manufactured goods the other way towards Europe and North America.

Malacca’s risks differ in character from those of Hormuz or Suez. There is no single hostile state currently threatening closure; instead, the danger is a composite of piracy, the sheer density and narrowness of traffic (raising collision and grounding risks to levels unmatched almost anywhere else), and its status as a long-term geopolitical pressure point. Chinese strategists have, for two decades, spoken openly of the “Malacca Dilemma,” a phrase associated with former President Hu Jintao: the recognition that China’s energy and trade lifelines pass through a strait China does not control and that could, in a crisis, be interdicted by a rival navy — chiefly the United States, but increasingly India as well. Roughly 80 per cent of China’s crude oil imports are estimated to transit Malacca, a dependency Beijing has spent billions trying to hedge against, including through the string of ports discussed below.

That dilemma is precisely why the strait’s approaches have become an arena of quiet yet intensifying strategic competition. Malaysia controls the western flank, Indonesia the eastern and southern approaches, and Singapore sits at the confluence with the South China Sea. None wants Malacca closed, since all depend on its traffic, but each is a small or medium power navigating between larger patrons. Against this backdrop, India’s posture in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which sit almost directly athwart the strait’s northern and western entrances, takes on outsized significance.

Andaman and Nicobar: India’s Watchtower on the Malacca Approaches

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands sit astride the western entrance to the Strait of Malacca, and India has spent the past two decades transforming this archipelago from a remote, lightly garrisoned outpost into its principal maritime power-projection base in the east. The islands host India’s only tri-service command, uniting army, navy, and air force assets. New Delhi has been sharply accelerating investment there: a dual-use civilian-military airport on Great Nicobar under Indian Navy control, capable of hosting large transport and surveillance aircraft; reinforced runways and fuel storage on Car Nicobar; and, most significant commercially, the Great Nicobar Project — a deep-water international transhipment port at Galathea Bay designed to intercept containerised cargo moving between West Asia, South Asia, and East Asia, while giving India persistent surveillance over shipping entering and leaving Malacca.

The strategic logic is clear in Indian policy circles: Great Nicobar lies only about 230 kilometres from the strait’s northern entrance, near the maritime boundary with Myanmar and Indonesia, giving India the ability to monitor — and, in a crisis, potentially contest — one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. The islands also give India oversight of the Six Degree and Ten-Degree Channels, which ships must use to approach Malacca from the west.

This has been reinforced diplomatically as well as militarily. In mid-2026, India and Indonesia — which controls the strait’s southern gateway — signed a new maritime safety and security framework during Prime Minister Modi’s visit and agreed to jointly develop Indonesia’s port of Sabang, which sits at the strait’s western mouth. Analysts describe the resulting configuration as a maritime arc bracketing Malacca’s western entrance from both sides. The stated aims are twofold: to give India leverage over a chokepoint that China depends on for the great majority of its energy imports, and to reduce India’s reliance on any single chokepoint — including Hormuz, from which India sources a substantial share of its crude.

IMEC: Building a Way Around the Chokepoints

If the Andaman and Nicobar buildup is India’s answer to defending a chokepoint it does not own, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor is its answer to reducing dependence on chokepoints altogether — and to countering a much older, more diffuse Chinese strategy aimed squarely at India’s maritime periphery. For nearly two decades, Indian strategists have warned of a Chinese “String of Pearls”: a network of commercial ports and dual-use facilities — Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Kyaukpyu in Myanmar, Chittagong in Bangladesh, and a base in Djibouti — those arcs from the South China Sea to the Horn of Africa and encircles India’s coastline on almost every side. Individually commercial and mostly Belt and Road-financed, these facilities collectively give China’s navy potential access points around India’s maritime backyard.

Gwadar is often singled out as the most consequential “pearl,” offering China a deep-water port on the Arabian Sea that bypasses Malacca entirely, thereby undercutting one of the few points of leverage India might otherwise hold over China’s energy supply lines. India’s naval response has been dubbed the “Necklace of Diamonds” strategy — an expanded network of bases, partnerships, and surveillance posts intended to counter-encircle China’s access to the Indian Ocean, with the Andaman and Nicobar buildup forming the eastern anchor.

IMEC, announced at the 2023 G20 summit in New Delhi and involving India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the EU, and the US as core signatories, adds an economic dimension to that counter-strategy. The plan links India to Europe via two legs: an eastern maritime corridor connecting Indian ports to Gulf ports, and a northern corridor of rail, energy, and data links running overland through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel to Mediterranean ports and beyond into Europe. Because the northern leg moves cargo by rail, it would allow India-Europe trade to bypass Suez, the Red Sea, and Bab el-Mandeb entirely — precisely the corridor repeatedly closed by Houthi attacks. Proponents have also cast IMEC as the Western-backed answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative: an alternative connectivity architecture that does not run through Chinese-financed ports.

For India specifically, IMEC serves a second, less publicised function: it provides a direct land-and-sea bridge to the Middle East and Europe that does not depend on chokepoints China can influence through its Pakistani and Sri Lankan footholds. Roughly half of India’s total exports, and nearly four-fifths of its exports to Europe, currently move via the Red Sea route — a dependency the Houthi crisis has made painfully visible and that IMEC is designed to reduce. Combined with the Andaman and Nicobar posture watching Malacca from the east, IMEC gives India a second axis of connectivity to the west. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has described IMEC as positioning India as “a trusted bridge of global connectivity,” with projected reductions in logistics costs of up to 30 per cent and transit times of up to 40 per cent.

The reality, however, has lagged well behind the ambition. As of mid-2026, IMEC remains largely in the planning and early-construction phase, three years after its announcement. Working groups have been formed among signatories; India and the UAE have signed an intergovernmental framework agreement covering a shared logistics platform; Saudi Arabia has pledged roughly $20 billion; and some component projects — rail lines, port upgrades — have broken ground independently of any unified financing mechanism. Yet there is still no dedicated funding structure, no binding US legislation, and no firm construction timeline for the corridor as a whole. Critically, its central land route runs through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel, meaning its viability hinges on a degree of Saudi-Israeli normalisation that the Gaza war has significantly complicated. The 2026 Hormuz war has, if anything, strengthened the strategic case for IMEC — but strategic logic alone has not yet translated into a fully financed, fully built alternative route. IMEC today is best understood less as an operating corridor than as a live option kept open in case Hormuz, Suez, or Malacca fail all at once.

The Common Thread: Concentration Risk in a Networked World

Taken together, these cases illustrate a single structural problem: global trade’s dependence on maritime chokepoints has not been “designed away” by decades of globalisation — if anything, it has deepened, since just-in-time supply chains and containerised shipping reward the shortest, most efficient routes, which usually means the narrowest ones. A handful of states or armed groups sitting on a few kilometres of coastline can impose costs measured in the tens of billions of dollars on the rest of the world.

Several patterns recur across Hormuz, Suez, and Malacca, helping explain why chokepoint crises have become more frequent and consequential rather than less over the past three years:

  • Escalation elsewhere spills into shipping lanes. None of the current crises began as a shipping dispute. Hormuz was closed in retaliation for a war over Iran’s nuclear programme; the Red Sea was attacked in solidarity with Gaza; Malacca’s tensions stem from the much larger rivalry between China, India, and the United States. Chokepoints serve as pressure-release valves for conflicts fought primarily on land or in the air.
  • Diversion is possible, but never free. Ships can reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, offload cargo at Sumed, or use the Sunda and Lombok Straits — but each alternative adds transit time, fuel costs, and steep war-risk insurance premiums, which are ultimately passed on to consumers.
  • Control is as much about presence as about ownership. No state legally “owns” Hormuz, Malacca, or the approaches to the Red Sea. Yet naval presence and credible interdiction confer practical control that legal ownership never could — exactly what India is building in the Andamans and what China has built through the String of Pearls.
  • Costs fall disproportionately on distant, uninvolved economies. Fuel shortages from the Hormuz closure have hit Asian consumers with no stake in the conflict; Red Sea disruptions have squeezed European manufacturers; a Malacca disruption would hit China, Japan, and South Korea hardest, none of which control the strait. This asymmetry is precisely what gives initiatives such as IMEC their political appeal.

Conclusion

The security of global commerce rests on a surprisingly small set of narrow waterways, and 2026 has made clear, with unusual force, how easily that security can fracture. Hormuz shows what happens when a chokepoint becomes an active theatre of war and how difficult such a crisis is to resolve once both sides have committed to it. Suez and the Red Sea show how a determined non-state actor, equipped with comparatively cheap missiles and drones, can keep a share of global trade at risk for years, with periods of recovery and relapse tied to a conflict hundreds of miles away. The buildup around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands shows how rising powers now treat chokepoint access as a long-term strategic asset, secured deliberately in peacetime rather than improvised in a crisis. And IMEC shows the emerging, if still unproven, alternative: building new overland and maritime routes that let trade sidesteps the most exposed straits entirely, even as its own slow progress shows how hard such alternatives are to finance compared with how easy they are to announce.

None of these responses offers a complete solution. A more heavily defended Hormuz does not stop Iran from mining it; an Indian naval presence around Malacca constrains but does not eliminate the “Malacca Dilemma” for China; and IMEC, even if fully built, would carry only a fraction of the volume currently moving through Suez. What all four responses share is a recognition that redundancy, not invulnerability, is the only realistic goal. As rivalries between major powers intensify and regional conflicts continue to spill into shipping lanes never designed to absorb them, the resilience of world trade will depend less on making any single chokepoint permanently safe and more on how much redundancy — alternative routes, forward-deployed naval partnerships, and diversified trade corridors — states and shipping companies can build before the next chokepoint closes, and the one after that.

Author Brief Bio: Vibhuti Jha is an International Banker & Geopolitical Strategist.

 

Re-Engineering Eurasia: The Indo-Mediterranean Corridor and the Reconstruction of Global Supply Chains

The loosening of geopolitical rigidities after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War opened the way for diverse relationships between nations and a gradual shift towards a multipolar world centred on new associations such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). This placed Eurasia, the contiguous landmass of Europe and Asia, at the centre of the emerging world order. This vast region, designated the World Island by British strategic thinker Halford Mackinder, includes Africa owing to its proximity to western Asia (the Gulf) and is now torn between the rising geo-economic ambitions and military assertiveness of the old superpowers (the United States and Russia).

Eurasia is now a virtual cauldron, but also the place where the regeneration of the new world order must take place. At the time of writing, there is no visible end to the conflicts in Ukraine or Iran. Europe is deeply divided, and parts of Africa are under stress. Hence, the move to build a new land-based trade network, amid the closure of some critical waterways (the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait), has acquired new urgency.

This is the genesis of the Indo-Mediterranean Corridor, originally proposed as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor at the G20 Summit in September 2023. The Corridor will link India and Europe via the Arabian Peninsula through a network of ports, high-speed railways, energy pipelines (electricity cables and hydrogen pipelines) and a digital grid. India will be linked to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Greece, Italy and France, as well as the Baltics. By avoiding contested sea lanes, it aims to enable fast, efficient movement of goods, data and resources across borders, strengthening supply chains, reducing transport costs and stimulating sustainable development. The Corridor hopes to attract investment and create jobs.[1]

China-India ties

On August 1, 2026, India and China reopened trade via Nathu La, an ancient route that carried Indian merchants and pilgrims to Tibet, while Tibetan merchants brought wool to India. Although the Nathu La trade is relatively small and the season short, it is a lifeline for the people on the frontier, offering small traders a chance to exchange their goods, buy supplies for remote districts, and providing work for transport operators and logistics providers.[2]

Improved bilateral ties could positively impact the Indo-Mediterranean Corridor by linking all Eurasian corridors, thereby creating a web of connectivity reminiscent of the ancient routes that once connected Asia with West Asia and Europe, known as the Silk Road, a term coined by a German geographer in the 19th century. Nathu La was an important node on the old Silk Road.[3] In July 2026, New Delhi cleared Chinese investment in the critical power sector and negotiated a joint venture for mobile phone manufacturing. India’s bilateral trade with China reached around USD 151 billion in 2025-26, leaving a deficit of USD 112 billion.

Indo-Mediterranean Corridor

The Indo-Mediterranean Corridor aims to connect the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. It comprises two distinct corridors linking eight major stakeholders. The Eastern Corridor links Indian ports such as Mundra, Kandla and Jawaharlal Nehru Port to the Arabian Gulf via the ports of Fujairah, Jebel Ali and Khalifa (UAE) and Dammam and Ras Al Khair (Saudi Arabia), and to Jordan. The Northern Corridor connects the Arabian Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia and Jordan, to Europe via Israel, using rail and the port of Haifa, which will link to European ports such as Piraeus (Greece). It aims to reduce logistics costs by 30 per cent and transport time by 40 per cent.

The ports will be equipped to handle high-technology trade (electronics, semiconductors, batteries, pharmaceuticals, solar modules, turbines, boilers, reactors, etc., and parts thereof). Priority will be given to completing the sections of the rail network linking the ports in the UAE and Saudi Arabia to the Israeli port. Connectivity between Haifa and the ports of Piraeus (Greece), Gioia Tauro (Italy) and Marseille (France) will be enhanced.

An important goal is to enable the Middle East to transition to low-carbon economies through green hydrogen and integrated electricity grids, and to harness its renewable energy potential. Free trade zones for solar energy could be established and used to produce green hydrogen. A high-speed digital network linking India, the Middle East and Europe will enhance data flow and financial connectivity across the regions.

Funding for this highly ambitious infrastructure project will be a major challenge. The Corridor hopes to attract regional investment by establishing seamless trade routes and ports linking India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Israel, and the European Union, and by mirroring the 7200-km International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) with Iran and Russia, thereby effectively reinventing the land and maritime routes of the early centuries BC. It will complement other global infrastructure initiatives, including India’s Neighbourhood First policy and the proposed Global Biofuel Alliance (launched by India on the sidelines of the G20).

In a disturbing setback before the corridor could take off, Iran’s Chabahar Port, in which India has invested USD 370 million, was badly hit by the United States. It was India’s gateway to bypass the troubled Strait of Hormuz. This has left the near-complete Zahedan rail project, which aims to link Chabahar with the INSTC, in limbo until the war ends and Iran rebuilds its infrastructure. As the war seems unlikely to end soon, partner countries will have to focus on peaceful zones. This is realistic, as the project involves massive cross-border construction and will anyway require multi-year timelines.

The project remains relevant even without conflict-driven closures of sea routes, as demonstrated by the Suez Canal Blockage of March 2021, when the container ship Ever Given was beached by strong winds.[4] The six-day crisis affected hundreds of vessels and disrupted nearly 12 per cent of global trade. In 2023-24, the Red Sea was disrupted by Houthi attacks on commercial shipping. Many ships had to take week-long detours, increasing cargo costs.

Moreover, the post-COVID era led to a surge in energy and food prices across the Global South and disrupted supply chains, triggering distress migration. This affected their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), increased debt burdens, and created significant infrastructure financing gaps. Current estimates suggest that USD 94 trillion in infrastructure investment is needed by 2040, with Asian countries requiring around USD 3.3 trillion per annum.

Rationale for the project

Expanding conflict zones, from Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas to Iran-US-Israel, and bilateral skirmishes in Africa (coupled with the current unrest in Spain over mass immigration from Morocco) highlight that every region is strategically vital. The need for land-based alternatives is imperative. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by India, the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union. It covered major G20 initiatives, including the Quality Infrastructure Investment (QII) principles, the Just Energy Transition Partnerships, the Global Biofuel Alliance and the High-Level Principles on Bioeconomy.[5]

The connectivity will span South Asia, BIMSTEC, ASEAN, and the Indo-Pacific to stimulate growth in developing countries through better resource utilisation, reduced trade costs, and the promotion of local industrialisation and MSMEs. It is pertinent that new large-scale projects are emerging in Central Asia, the Caspian Sea region, and the Luzon Corridor in the Asia-Pacific.

A proposal for India-UAE undersea grid connectivity under the One World, One Sun, One Grid (OSOWOG) will link all forms of renewable energy generators, storage, and loads across continents via a transcontinental power transmission grid. Existing infrastructure will be enhanced to deliver on the International Solar Alliance’s (ISA) mission of Energy Transition, Energy Security, and Energy Access, with the Corridor and OSOWOG complementing each other. The ultimate goal is to import cheaper clean energy when needed and export excess power, thereby offering the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries access to a broader and more flexible electricity supply. The current GCC Interconnection Grid connects the national grids of the six member states, with a total capacity of 2,400 MW.

Meanwhile, Egypt (not an I-M partner) has moved closer to becoming a regional electricity transmission hub for the Eastern Mediterranean by securing a deal with Greece to build the EU-backed Euro-Africa Interconnector subsea cable. The UAE could eventually link India to the GCC and to the Euro-Africa Interconnector.

The ultimate goal is to integrate Global Value Chains (GVCs) and address all tariff and non-tariff issues, including Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). The infrastructure gap will be bridged by the G7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII). This aims to mobilise USD 600 billion for infrastructure projects across Africa, Europe and the Middle East and would be critical for Indo-Mediterranean Corridor projects. The Government of India has approved the Inter-Governmental Framework Agreement (IGFA) to coordinate between India and the UAE.

For India, the large European market lies at the heart of the India-EU Connectivity Partnership (2021). India’s ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’ and ‘Act East Policy’ offer opportunities for India’s South Asian neighbours and could help ASEAN (India is a Strategic Partner) integrate more effectively with the world through the Indo-Mediterranean Corridor by linking to the Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multimodal connectivity project. As several I-M partners are equally invested in trade with the Indo-Pacific, the Corridor could emerge as a viable long-term alternative for global trade passing through the region. A key element of the project is to create a Skill Corridor through collaborations among universities and the establishment of new universities. Think tanks and philanthropic bodies could contribute knowledge. The project would need expertise in ports and infrastructure, energy, multimodal connectivity, climate resilience, the blue economy, digital public infrastructure, etc., with gender-sensitive approaches.

Digital Corridor

Digital connectivity will eventually create a financial corridor, with interoperability with existing financial systems and national payments across participating countries, such as India’s UPI, for cross-border settlements. Emily Tasinato, Visiting Fellow at the Italian think tank Fondazione CSF (Centre for Studies on Federalism), observes that the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are investing billions of dollars in data centres, cloud infrastructure, semiconductor development, and AI-driven applications.[6] Indeed, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh have positioned themselves as global exporters of computing power, with national champions such as the Emirati G42 and the Saudi HUMAIN securing deals with US firms to develop large-scale AI infrastructure.

The Gulf’s strategic location at the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and Asia uniquely positions these countries as pivotal hubs in the global digital economy. They are underpinned by deep capital reserves, low-cost energy, competitive tax regimes, and innovation-friendly regulations, and they offer attractive terms for tech investment. Europe can offer technological know-how and regulatory expertise. The European Union’s Digital Decade Policy programme 2030 seeks to boost resilience, competitiveness, and innovation by investing in secure data infrastructure, advancing digital skills, and promoting a sustainable and ethical digital transformation.

India enters this triangle with technological dynamism, its Semiconductor Mission and National Quantum Mission, a role in shaping global AI governance debates, and the hosting of the 2026 AI Impact Summit. India also offers a vast domestic market, an expanding digital ecosystem, and a deep pool of technology talent. The Stanford AI Index 2025 ranked India second worldwide for AI skill penetration from 2015 to 2024.

Trade agreements

Bilateral trade agreements among the EU, the Gulf, and India will strengthen the Corridor. The EU and India signed the largest Free Trade Agreement in January 2026 (awaiting signature and ratification by the European and Indian parliaments). Brussels is New Delhi’s largest trading partner, with a combined market of around USD 25 trillion.

The Gulf States account for nearly 15 per cent of India’s foreign trade (USD 180 billion in 2025). Over the past decade, New Delhi has broadened its engagement beyond energy and expatriate labour to include infrastructure investment, advanced technologies, logistics, and defence cooperation. Ties with the UAE have deepened through mini-lateral formats such as the I2U2 (India-Israel-UAE-US), supported by the 2022 Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Defence cooperation has evolved into a formal strategic defence partnership. In fact, the India-UAE tie is the most active component of the Corridor, with significant investments from both governments.

Europe has also deepened ties with the Gulf amid concerns about energy security following the war in Ukraine. In recent years, Europe-Gulf ties have broadened to include renewables, critical raw materials, AI and hi-tech, finance and fintech, and security cooperation. The 2022 Joint Communication on a “Strategic Partnership with the Gulf” and the 2024 EU-GCC Summit are important milestones. Europe is the Gulf’s second-largest trading partner after China, and Brussels is seeking bilateral Strategic Partnership Agreements (SPAs) with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

The Corridor has been shaped by the Abraham Accords and the I2U2 framework, and by the hope that Saudi Arabia and Israel would normalise relations, as hinted at by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in September 2023. However, the war in Gaza and alarm in Riyadh and Amman over a militarily assertive Israel have stalled progress. This underscores the need for flexible routings that could include nations not currently part of the project, such as Egypt (via the Strait of Tiran), Syria (through the Saudi-backed Silk Link project), and Turkey.

Reviving the Corridor

Global events have spurred renewed efforts to get the corridor up and running. Talks between the Greek Foreign Minister and the Indian External Affairs Minister (February 8, 2026); the Israeli Minister of Economy and Industry (February 12, 2026); and the Indian Prime Minister and the French President (February 12, 2026) advanced the matter.[7] During Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Washington in February 2025, the India-US Joint Statement (issued on February 13, 2026) declared that “The leaders plan to convene partners from the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor and the I2U2 Group within the next six months in order to announce new initiatives in 2025.” President Trump called it “one of the greatest trade routes in all of history.”

There are geopolitical complexities. Turkey and Egypt are important regional powers not yet included in the project. The day after the announcement, Turkish President Erdoğan said, “There’s no corridor without Turkey”, alluding to the shipping route between Israel and Greece, which passes through waters disputed by Ankara. Moreover, the Chinese shipping company Cosco holds the majority stake in the port of Piraeus (Greece), while Italy and France have positioned themselves as alternatives.

The security environment and funding remain challenging. Saudi Arabia has committed USD 20 billion, a fraction of the USD 600 billion that partner countries have pledged to mobilise by 2027. The MoU does not impose financial obligations on stakeholder countries, and experts expect significant funding through the G7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.

The Mediterranean Gates

The Mediterranean region, especially Italy, Spain and Greece, the Nordic region and Central Europe are important to the Corridor’s success. Eastern Europe has gained new geopolitical significance due to the eastern Mediterranean oil and gas discoveries, the normalisation of Israel’s ties with some Arab nations and the intensifying civil wars in the Levant and North Africa.

India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, highlighting the importance of the Mediterranean, said, “India’s annual trade with the Mediterranean nations is about USD 80 billion. We have a diaspora here of 460,000. About 40 per cent of that in Italy.” (Rome, November 2024) He identified fertilisers, energy, water technology, diamonds, defence and cyber as India’s main interests and noted India’s expanding defence collaboration with the Mediterranean region.[8] India hopes to link the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific via the Mediterranean.

India’s bilateral relations with Greece were elevated to a strategic partnership in August 2023. The two countries aim to double bilateral trade by 2030 and to expand cooperation in space science, biotechnology, clean energy, defence, maritime security, and cultural exchange. India’s ties with Spain have also been strengthening. Spanish President Pedro Sánchez visited in October 2024 and emphasised trade, investment, tourism, culture, and multilateral diplomacy. Spain is eager to invest in India’s defence production, notably through the Spanish Airbus project to produce the C-295 military transport aircraft in Gujarat, in partnership with the Tatas. Madrid supports India’s participation in the Ibero-American summit (November 4-5, 2026) as an Associate Observer, which will enhance India’s Latin American footprint.

The New Delhi-Rome relationship, strained during the Italian Marines case (2012), was reset by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s 2023 visit to India. It was elevated to a comprehensive strategic relationship, with defence cooperation and military-technical research emerging as a focal area. At the Raisina Dialogue, Meloni noted that the Mediterranean Sea links the Euro-Atlantic area with the Indo-Pacific littoral.

With 110 ports, 62 commercial hubs, 20 primary commercial ports, and 16 Port System Authorities, Italy aims to achieve €700 billion in annual exports via the Indo-Mediterranean corridor.[9] Trieste is emerging as a rail hub linking the Mediterranean to Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. With the Blue Raman cable, a high-capacity fibre-optic network linking Europe to India and spanning France, Italy, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, and Oman, Italy is positioning itself as a digital hub in the Mediterranean. The “Italia Digitale 2026” programme and the Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) allocate €6.7 billion to broadband and digital services, including secure cloud services and digital wallet pilots. Data-centre investments are projected to reach €30 billion by 2026.

Italy’s bidirectional electricity submarine power cables (Italy–Tunisia) and the Trans Adriatic Links (Italy–Albania–UAE) facilitate the transfer of renewable power to the EU. Upgrades at the Port of Trieste are underway to support increased imports of green hydrogen, ammonia and LNG, under bilateral renewable energy projects with Gulf partners.

India–Italy bilateral trade has risen from €10.49 billion in 2021 to €14.24 billion in 2024, and is projected to reach €20 billion by 2029. In FY 2025, Indian exports of €7.1 billion were dominated by engineering goods, electronics, and organic and inorganic chemicals, while imports included machinery such as nuclear reactors, boilers, and other electrical machinery, as well as organic chemicals. Under the India–EU FTA, Italy plans a €500 million investment in 2026 in sectors such as pharma, maritime, and digitalisation to diversify supply chains along the Corridor.

There is a need to explore alternative transit points, including Cyprus and Greece (for decongestion and rapid evacuation from Haifa, Israel), and the India–Dar es Salaam–North Africa and India–Dar es Salaam–Lobito corridors.

África

Africa is too large a continent and too close to Eurasia to be ignored, not to mention the wealth of its natural resources. The energy crisis caused by the wars in Ukraine and Iran prompted Algeria to begin work on its section of the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP) in June 2026. Planned in the 1970s, the 4,128-km-long pipeline runs from Nigeria (1,185 km) through Niger (720 km) to Algeria (2,424 km).[10] It will connect to Algeria’s existing gas network near Aoulef and extend to the Mediterranean export terminals.

Morocco is keen to compete with the pipeline. The USD 25 billion African Atlantic Gas Pipeline, a 6,900-km Nigeria-Morocco line, has an annual capacity of 30 bcm and links 13 nations along the Atlantic coast of West Africa. Morocco hopes to become the transit axis of the West African gas corridor and to strengthen its relations with the EU. Algeria has completed its 2,400 km stretch of the Trans-Saharan Highway, which will link North Africa with the Sahel markets. It connects Mediterranean ports with countries farther south and will boost intra-continental trade integration. Only the complex stretches connecting Algeria with Mali and Niger remain; a link between Niger and Chad is possible.

Continuing the quest

Recent diplomatic visits by Prime Minister Modi have had a particular focus on Eurasia: France and Slovakia (June 2026); the United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and Italy (May 2026); and Israel (February 2026). He signed a number of bilateral pacts covering technology, energy security, defence, green technology, Critical and Emerging Technologies, artificial intelligence, and critical minerals. Modi’s most recent tour to Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand (July 6-11, 2026) reaches the outer circle of the globe, in a positive take on Kautilya’s Mandala concept of seeking layers of friendship, leapfrogging or bypassing inimical nations.

Indonesia is critical to India’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Both nations cooperate within the G20, ASEAN, BRICS, and the Indian Ocean Rim Association. India imports coal, iron, steel, and palm oil, and is keen to procure rare-earth minerals, particularly nickel (Indonesia’s reserves exceed 20% of the global total), cobalt, tin, and bauxite. Joint ventures are being considered to extract and process Indonesia’s critical minerals, to create more resilient supply chains.

A mechanism to settle transactions in local currencies is being pursued to reduce dependence on the US dollar. Another plan is to integrate payment systems and use AI to build digital infrastructure for payments and market monitoring. India has agreed to supply Indonesia with Russian-Indian BrahMos missile systems, Indian Astra missiles, and other weaponry. Finally, through cultural and educational diplomacy, India will assist in the restoration of Indonesia’s monumental Hindu temple complex of Prambanan.

Indonesia has entered into a strategic partnership with Belarus to access the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) market.[11] Indonesia mainly exports raw commodities and semi-finished products and imports technology and capital goods. Belarus can support Indonesia’s industrialisation with heavy equipment, agricultural machinery, potash fertilisers, and defence technology.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Suez Canal carried 12-15 per cent of global trade in 2023, a figure that fell by 42 per cent amid Red Sea disruptions in early 2024.[12] Trade via the Cape of Good Hope increased by 89 per cent. Former Egyptian minister Khaled Hanafy opines that the success of the Indo-Mediterranean Corridor will be measured by the extent to which the Middle East becomes an economic node with added value. The World Bank’s 2024 Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) ranks Port Said third, Tanger Med fifth, Hamad Port in Qatar eleventh, and Salalah Port in the Sultanate of Oman fifteenth in global rankings, despite the Red Sea crisis that year.

However, the current conflict with Iran has affected the Suez Canal. In March 2025, the Egyptian president lamented that Egypt was losing around USD 800 million per month in canal revenues due to regional disruptions. This underscores that the value of trade corridors is linked to security, stability, resilience, insurance, and political readiness. Hanafy advised that the Indo-Mediterranean Corridor must emphasise regulatory coordination, customs clearance, port-to-rail connectivity, upgraded digital services, harmonised standards, secured investments, and reduced risk of disruption.

For the Gulf region, which has suffered severe damage due to the Iran-US-Israel hostilities, the Corridor offers a grand opportunity to position itself at the heart of global trade chains by investing in manufacturing, advanced logistics services, special economic zones, clean energy, and the digital economy.

Author Brief Bio: Sandhya Jain is a political analyst, independent researcher, and author of multiple books. She is also editor of the platform Vijayvaani.

Endnotes:

[1] Kalpana Sharma, “India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor: IMEC Corridor,” Vajirao Institute, January 29, 2026, https://www.vajiraoinstitute.com/upsc-ias-current-affairs/india-middle-east-europe-economic-corridor-imec.aspx.

[2] Siddharth Singh, “What the Reopening of Nathu La Means for China-India Relations,” The Diplomat, July 31, 2026, https://thediplomat.com/2026/07/what-the-reopening-of-nathu-la-means-for-china-india-relations/.

[3] “India and China to Resume Border Trade,” RT, July 27, 2026, https://www.rt.com/india/643544-india-china-border-trade/.

[4] Sharma, “India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.”

[5] Research and Information System for Developing Countries, India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC): Strategic Choices and Way Forward (New Delhi: RIS, 2025).

[6] Emily Tasinato, “IMEC and the New Geography of Strategic Connectivity in the Indo-Mediterranean,” Commentary no. 026 NS/2026, Fondazione Centro Studi sul Federalismo, 2026, https://fondazionecsf.it/it/gulf-europe-india-tech-bridge/imec-and-the-new-geography-of-strategic-connectivity-in-the-indo-mediterranean.

[7] “The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor,” India’s World, February 25, 2025, https://indiasworld.in/the-india-middle-east-europe-economic-corridor/.

[8] C. Raja Mohan, “India and Europe: The Rise of the Indo-Mediterranean,” Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, December 6, 2024, https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/papers/india-and-europe-the-rise-of-the-indo-mediterranean/.

[9] Abhishek Agarwal, “India and Italy: Bridging Continents Through IMEC,” Centre for Social and Economic Progress, April 24, 2026, https://csep.org/blog/india-and-italy-bridging-continents-through-imec/.

[10] Tamara Ryzhenkova, “Energy Corridors to Europe: Former Colonies Are Taking the Valve,” RT, July 26, 2026, https://www.rt.com/africa/643336-europe-needs-african-gas/.

[11] Hendra Manurung, “Alternative Paths Amid Western Hegemony: Why Indonesia Needs Belarus’s ‘Eurasian Bridge’,” New Eastern Outlook, July 17, 2026, https://journal-neo.su/2026/07/17/alternative-paths-amid-western-hegemony-why-indonesia-needs-belaruss-eurasian-bridge/.

[12] Khaled Hanafy, “Will the Middle East Transform into a Strategic Node in Global Trade?,” The Pioneer, July 5, 2026, https://dailypioneer.com/news/will-the-middle-east-transform-into-a-strategic-node-in-global-trade.

 

The Logic of Correlated Risk: Defining the Indo-Mediterranean as a Strategic Geography

Introduction: Naming the Logic, Not the Place

A new strategic geography is taking shape along the arc stretching from India’s western seaboard, through the Arabian Sea and the Gulf, across the Levant, and into the Mediterranean. Its threads are the seaborne trade of three continents, the energy that powers them, the undersea cables that carry their data, and the financial systems that settle their transactions. Strategic discourse in India and Europe has begun to call this space the Indo-Mediterranean. In a joint statement, the leaders of India and Italy described the emergence of “what might be termed the Indo-Mediterranean, an important corridor for trade, technology, energy, data and ideas tying the Indian Ocean to Europe.”1 The phrase is more than a diplomatic ornament. It recognises that a single band of physical geography now carries the systems on which two continents depend.

The temptation is to define this space as the Indo-Pacific’s western extension, applying the same logic of maritime competition beyond the Arabian Peninsula. This paper argues that this temptation should be resisted, as it obscures what is genuinely new about the space and therefore disarms strategy before it begins. Naming a place is the work of cartographers. Naming the logic by which a place must be understood is the work of strategy. Mahan did not name the oceans; he named sea power. Mackinder did not name Eurasia; he named the pivot. The Indo-Mediterranean does not need another mapmaker. It needs its organising logic identified.

This paper offers a logic and gives it a name: correlated risk. The argument proceeds through five propositions, each contestable and consequential. The paper claims no new theory. It applies established reasoning, drawn from reliability engineering, portfolio theory, and the scholarship on weaponised interdependence, to an emerging strategic space. Its single contribution is that application, demonstrated through the crisis of 2026.

Proposition I: A New Geography Exists, and It Is Not the Indo-Pacific

The claim that the Indo-Mediterranean is a distinct strategic geography must be earned, not asserted, because the obvious objection is that it is merely a sub-region of the Indo-Pacific or an arena of European neighbourhood policy. The distinction rests on three structural features that together give the space a logic the Indo-Pacific framing cannot capture.

The first is the absence of a hegemon. The Indo-Pacific, as a strategic construct, is organised around a single peer competitor. For the United States, India, Japan, and Australia alike, the central question is how to balance China’s rising power, and the characteristic instruments are those of balance: presence, deterrence, and alliance. The Indo-Mediterranean has no such organising pole. China is present through its commercial reach, from Indian Ocean ports to the Mediterranean terminus at Piraeus, but it is not hegemonic there; nor are the United States, the European Union, India, or the Gulf states. The space is genuinely plural: several powers of comparable but partial weight, none able to impose order.

The second feature is chokepoint density. No comparable stretch of the world’s surface concentrates so many critical maritime passages in such a confined space. The Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb, the approaches to the Suez Canal, and the contested waters of the eastern Mediterranean lie within a few days’ sailing of one another, and through them passes a share of the world’s energy and trade out of all proportion to their physical extent. The Indo-Pacific has its chokepoints, Malacca above all, but they are dispersed across an ocean. The Indo-Mediterranean is defined by chokepoints, strung close together along a single thread. A geography defined by the proximity of its chokepoints behaves differently under stress, because a single disturbance can affect several at once.

The third feature is the coupling of domains. Across the Indo-Mediterranean, the energy, trade, data, and financial systems do not run on parallel tracks; they run along the same physical geography. Undersea cables follow the shipping lanes through the same straits; energy flows and container traffic traverse the same passages; financial settlement tracks trade. In the wider Indo-Pacific, these systems retain some independence through sheer dispersion. In the Indo-Mediterranean, they are bundled so tightly that they constitute a single coupled system. A coupled system is defined by the fact that its parts fail together.

These three features define a category of strategic space that requires a distinct doctrine. While the Indo-Pacific asks how to balance a rival, the Indo-Mediterranean asks how to keep a coupled, chokepoint-dense system from failing all at once in a space where no one is in charge. While the Indo-Pacific rewards the accumulation of presence, the Indo-Mediterranean rewards the building of resilience. The Indo-Pacific is a balance-of-power geography. The Indo-Mediterranean is a resilience geography. They are distinct categories of strategic space, and they require different doctrines.

The structural forces shaping this geography are not transient. The gravitational shift of the world economy towards the Indian Ocean, the rewiring of the strategic map by the energy transition, the superimposition of a digital and data layer over the physical one, and the return of multipolar competition are deep currents, not cyclical fluctuations. They will not reverse with an administration or a ceasefire. The resilience geography is emerging because the foundations of the world economy, the energy system, the information order, and the balance of power are shaping it. The only open question is what logic will be brought to bear on it.

Proposition II: The Governing Logic Is Correlated Failure

If the Indo-Mediterranean is a resilience geography, its governing strategic question is how its components fail, and specifically whether they fail together. This is the heart of the paper, and it can be stated as a principle that, once seen, is hard to unsee.

The case for connectivity infrastructure rests on redundancy. If one route closes, another absorbs the traffic; alternative corridors are an insurance policy against disruption. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), whose Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 9 September 2023 at the G20 summit in New Delhi by India, the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the European Union, France, Germany, and Italy, is routinely justified in exactly these terms.2 But redundancy delivers resilience only if the failure modes of the alternative are independent of the risks that disable the primary. A backup that fails for the same reason, and at the same moment, as the primary provides no protection at all.

This is not a novel insight in other fields. In reliability engineering, it is known as common-cause failure: an event that causes the simultaneous failure of two or more redundant channels, thereby defeating the redundancy intended to guarantee the system.3 In portfolio theory, it is the problem of correlation, formalised by Harry Markowitz, who demonstrated that diversification reduces risk only to the extent that the assets held are not correlated with one another.4 A portfolio of assets that all move together is no safer than a single holding. Applied to strategic geography, the principle is simple: two routes that pass through, or depend on, the same conflict-prone zone is correlated. Building the second does not hedge the first.

There is a counterpoint worth confronting. In 1990, Edward Luttwak argued that the post-Cold War world would see “the methods of commerce” displace military methods, with “disposable capital in lieu of firepower” and “market penetration in lieu of garrisons and bases.”5 On that expectation, corridors would be governed by the grammar of commerce. However, the corridors of the Indo-Mediterranean have instead been weaponised. As Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman have shown, states with jurisdiction over the central nodes of global networks can exploit that position through a “chokepoint effect,” denying adversaries access to flows of energy, goods, and information.6 The corridor is not neutral plumbing. It is an instrument, and coercion is applied at its nodes.

The comparative evidence supports the correlated-failure reading. The Middle Corridor across the Caspian has gained relevance precisely because it offers a route independent of both Russian territory and the volatile maritime chokepoints. A World Bank assessment concluded that it could provide resilience and route diversification for China-Europe trade, thereby shielding supply chains from geopolitical shocks.7 By contrast, the International North-South Transport Corridor has struggled because its nodes are linked to sanctioned or conflict-prone jurisdictions in Iran and Russia, so the risks it carries are correlated with the very disruptions a hedge is meant to avoid.

Proposition III: The 2026 Crisis Was the Proof

The theoretical case became empirical in early 2026. The sequence warrants careful attention. Following the Gaza ceasefire of October 2025, the Houthis suspended their campaign against commercial shipping, and traffic through the Red Sea began to partially recover.8 That recovery was interrupted. On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran; Iran responded by attacking targets across the region and moving to close the Strait of Hormuz.9 The waterway was effectively shut within days. The stakes were considerable: in 2025, an average of 20 million barrels of crude oil and oil products per day moved through the strait, around one quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade, while the Qatari and Emirati LNG passing through it represented almost one fifth of global LNG exports.10 By early April, an estimated 1,000 vessels were caught in a holding pattern in and around the Gulf.11 QatarEnergy declared force majeure on long-term LNG supply contracts as Ras Laffan output was disrupted.12 On 28 March 2026, the Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Israel, their first attack since the ceasefire, threatening the Red Sea once again.13 Hormuz and the Red Sea were now disrupted simultaneously, a condition without recent precedent. A conditional ceasefire was announced in April, but shipping did not recover: well into 2026, Suez Canal traffic remained roughly half of its pre-crisis peak.14

Here is the analytical point. The proposed overland alternatives within IMEC, the Levant leg linking the Gulf through Jordan and Israel to the Mediterranean, run through the very conflict zone whose instability closed the sea lanes. The corridor’s redundancy and the risk it is meant to hedge are correlated. Had the rail spine existed in February 2026, it would have failed at the same moment and for the same reason as the maritime routes it was intended to back up. The conditional phrasing is deliberate: the IMEC rail does not yet exist. That is precisely why the point is a warning about sequencing rather than a post-mortem.

The crisis also clarifies how the corridor’s benefits have been presented. The claim that IMEC will make trade between India and Europe forty per cent faster is attributed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s 2023 State of the Union address.15 The companion figure of thirty per cent lower cost has no verifiable official measurement behind it.16 Both are political projections for a route that has not been built. In a resilience geography, projected efficiency gains are worth little if they are not weighted by the independence of the route’s failure modes.

The lesson is not that the Indo-Mediterranean lacks strategic value. The diversification imperative argues powerfully for it, and the crisis once again demonstrated that concentrating the world’s energy and trade through a handful of narrow passages is a first-order fragility. The lesson is that the corridor’s value must be built on components genuinely independent of regional conflict risk, not asserted on the basis of redundancy the geography does not in fact provide. That requirement turns the logic of correlated risk into a strategy.

Proposition IV: The Strategy Is Sequencing by Independence

If correlated failure is the governing risk, the operational doctrine is to sequence investment by the product of standalone value and failure-mode independence. A component earns priority when it delivers benefit on its own, without waiting for the rest of the corridor, and when its vulnerabilities are uncorrelated with those already in place.

The corridor’s substantive agenda can be organised around six pillars: strategic security; economic integration, anchored by the free trade agreement between India and the European Union, concluded on 27 January 2026;17 digital and artificial-intelligence infrastructure; the energy transition; innovation and human capital; and adaptive governance. None of these pillars is presented as original. They synthesise established frameworks, including the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment, endorsed at Osaka in 2019.18 The contribution lies in the ordering rule applied to them, which produces three tiers.

Tier one comprises the independent foundations, the elements that stand alone and whose failure modes are least correlated with regional conflict. The India-Gulf maritime leg is already operational; bilateral India-UAE trade reached 65 billion US dollars in 2024, supported by the intergovernmental framework agreement on IMEC, signed on 13 February 2024.19 An interoperable digital layer for trade documentation and payments can be built without laying a single rail, does not prescribe any single nation’s platform, and is largely immune to land-based conflict. The western, Mediterranean section of the Blue-Raman submarine cable is complete and in service, while its Red Sea segment has been delayed due to security risks.20 Cheapest of all and highest in leverage is a permanent coordinating secretariat: the corridor still lacks one, and creating it costs almost nothing relative to the value it would unlock.

Tier two comprises conditional investments, to be made only when specified enabling conditions are met: cross-border digital identity, port-clustered manufacturing, and the exposed segments of the data-cable network. Tier three comprises what should be held in reserve: the Gulf-Levant rail spine and the cross-Israel connection, the components most correlated with regional conflict and carrying the least standalone value until the entire chain is complete. This is not an argument for abandoning them. It is an argument for hedging them by advancing alternative routings, for instance via Egypt or around the Arabian Peninsula through Oman, thereby bypassing Hormuz entirely. Atlantic Council analysts estimate that a network of such corridors could displace roughly sixty per cent of the container traffic now vulnerable to Hormuz disruption.21

The financing profile reinforces the point. An Atlantic Council assessment finds that IMEC faces about 5 billion US dollars in costs to become minimally operational, with costs concentrated in the Jordan-Israel segment, exactly the leg most exposed to the conflict that closed the sea lanes.22 Meanwhile, India has committed some 10 billion US dollars to port modernisation, and Saudi Arabia has pledged around 20 billion US dollars towards corridor-linked infrastructure, investments whose value does not depend on the Levant leg.23 Sequencing by independence prevents states from pouring capital into the most vulnerable nodes first.

Proposition V: India Anchors the Order Through Independent Capability

An honest analysis must address an objection. By conventional measures, India is the weakest of the major actors in the western half of this space. Its naval reach beyond the Arabian Sea is limited; it maintains no presence in the Mediterranean; and its economic weight in the Gulf, though growing, is surpassed by China’s. If the Indo-Mediterranean were a balance-of-power geography, these facts would settle the question: India could not lead.

The resolution lies in the distinction drawn at the outset. In a balance-of-power geography, leadership flows from presence. In a resilience geography, leadership flows from providing the independent capabilities that keep the system functioning when parts of it fail. India’s position is strong. India operates digital public infrastructure at a scale few states can match, in payments, identity, and data exchange, exactly the kind of low-correlation, standalone capability that a resilience geography rewards. It provides maritime security across the Arabian Sea and the western Indian Ocean, the eastern approach on which the whole corridor depends. Through the free trade agreement of January 2026, it anchors the corridor’s economic integration with Europe. And its long tradition of strategic autonomy suits the plural governance of a space with no hegemon, allowing it to engage all parties without being captured by any.

India leads, therefore, not by being present everywhere, which it cannot be, but by owning the independent capabilities that geography rewards. This is a role that fits India’s actual capabilities rather than its aspirational ones, and it is a more durable role for exactly that reason: it does not depend on parity of presence India will not soon achieve, but on leadership in capability India already holds. The weakest power by the old measure becomes the natural anchor by the new one, provided it understands geography correctly and acts on the logic that geography demands.

The Doctrine

The five propositions constitute a single doctrine, and a doctrine, to be worth the name, must be expressible in one sentence and then unfolded. Here is the sentence. In a chokepoint-dense geography without a hegemon, strategic advantage comes not from controlling routes but from building capabilities whose vulnerabilities are independent of one another; and India’s role is to anchor an open Indo-Mediterranean order by leading in precisely those independent capabilities. From that sentence, everything in this paper follows. The geography’s distinctiveness makes control of routes the wrong objective and resilience the right one. The logic of correlated failure makes independence of vulnerabilities the measure of value. The 2026 crisis proves that the measure is real and that the conventional redundancy rationale is unsafe. The sequencing strategy is the doctrine’s operational form. And India’s role is its application to the one power whose capabilities fit the logic.

Four working principles are derived from the same sentence: independence over redundancy, because an alternative route has strategic value only if its failure modes are independent of the primary’s risks; capability over geography, because influence in a non-hegemonic space belongs to the provider of resilient standalone capabilities rather than to the power with the largest footprint; sequencing over completion, because staging investment by independence keeps the corridor valuable even if the full physical link is never completed; and openness over control, because connectivity organised as a commons lowers costs for all participants, whereas connectivity organised as an instrument of exclusion invites the very coercion the doctrine is designed to escape.

Conclusion

This paper has argued that the Indo-Mediterranean is not the Indo-Pacific extended westward but a distinct category of strategic space, a resilience geography, chokepoint-dense and without a hegemon, and that the logic governing it is the logic of correlated risk. It has argued that the redundancy on which the strategic case for the space conventionally rests is, when the alternatives’ failures are correlated with the risks they hedge, no redundancy at all; that the 2026 crisis demonstrated this in a contemporary case; that the strategy the logic demands is to sequence investment by standalone value and independence; and that India’s role is to anchor an open order by leading in the independent capabilities the geography rewards.

Looking towards 2050, the objective is a resilient, sequenced, and open Indo-Mediterranean order: one in which investment is staged for failure-mode independence rather than headline efficiency, in which no single conflict can sever energy, trade, data, and finance at once, and in which India stands as the indispensable anchor rather than an aspirant hegemon. The corridor’s promise is real, but it will be realised only if its builders treat correlation, not distance or cost, as the variable that matters most. The 2026 crisis was a rehearsal. The lesson it taught was sequencing by independence, and that lesson is available to anyone willing to read established reasoning into a new map.24

Author Brief Bio: Suryanarayanan Dinakaran is the Founder and Director of Webronic Industries Private Limited, India, and Co-Founder of Thingsatweb Sweden AB, where he has led technology and infrastructure ventures spanning India and Scandinavia for over a decade. He is a Research Scholar in Public Administration, with research interests at the intersection of geopolitics, geoeconomics, and strategic decision-making under uncertainty. His current work examines how states should plan, sequence, and build resilient infrastructure and connectivity in an increasingly multipolar world, with particular attention to India’s emerging strategic role across the Indo-Mediterranean.

 Endnotes

  1. Narendra Modi and Giorgia Meloni, “Italy and India: A Strategic Partnership for the Indo-Mediterranean,” joint op-ed, The Times of India and Corriere della Sera, 2026.
  2. “Memorandum of Understanding on the Principles of an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor,” 9 September 2023, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
  3. Marvin Rausand and Mary Ann Lundteigen, “Common Cause Failures,” in Reliability of Safety-Critical Systems: Theory and Applications (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2014); International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC 61508: Functional Safety of Electrical/Electronic/Programmable Electronic Safety-Related Systems (Geneva: IEC, 2010).
  4. Harry Markowitz, “Portfolio Selection,” Journal of Finance 7, no. 1 (1952): 77–91.
  5. Edward N. Luttwak, “From Geopolitics to Geo-Economics: Logic of Conflict, Grammar of Commerce,” The National Interest, no. 20 (1990): 17–23.
  6. Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion,” International Security 44, no. 1 (2019): 42–79.
  7. World Bank, Middle Trade and Transport Corridor: Policies and Investments to Triple Freight Volumes and Halve Travel Time by 2030 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023).
  8. “Timeline of the Red Sea Crisis,” gCaptain, 2025.
  9. House of Commons Library, US-Iran Ceasefire and Nuclear Talks in 2026, Briefing Paper CBP-10637 (London: UK Parliament, 2026).
  10. International Energy Agency, “Strait of Hormuz,” factsheet, 2026; U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Amid Regional Conflict, the Strait of Hormuz Remains Critical Oil Chokepoint,” Today in Energy, 2025.
  11. Congressional Research Service, The Strait of Hormuz in Brief: Non-Oil Shipments and Effects on U.S. Shippers, Report R48903 (Washington, DC: CRS, 2026).
  12. “QatarEnergy Declares Force Majeure on Some LNG Contracts Due to Iran War,” Al Jazeera, 24 March 2026.
  13. “A Houthi Missile Attack on Israel Raises Concerns About Red Sea Shipping Routes Being Blocked,” Associated Press, 28 March 2026.
  14. House of Commons Library, Israel/US-Iran Conflict 2026: Reopening the Strait of Hormuz, Briefing Paper CBP-10636 (London: UK Parliament, 2026); Niels Rasmussen, “Suez Canal Traffic Stalls at 60% Below Normal Despite 100 Days Without Houthi Attacks,” gCaptain, January 2026.
  15. Ursula von der Leyen, “2023 State of the Union Address,” European Commission, Strasbourg, 13 September 2023.
  16. Asher Fredman and Joseph Rozen, The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor: A Catalyst for Regional Integration and Global Prosperity (Jerusalem: Misgav Institute, 2025).
  17. European Commission, “EU and India Conclude Landmark Free Trade Agreement,” press release, 27 January 2026.
  18. G20, G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment, Osaka Summit, June 2019.
  19. Press Information Bureau, Government of India, “Cabinet Approves Inter-Governmental Framework Agreement between India and the United Arab Emirates on Cooperation for the Empowerment and Operation of the IMEC,” 13 February 2024; Allison Minor et al., “It Is Europe’s Time to Shine on IMEC,” Atlantic Council, 2025.
  20. “Blue-Raman,” Submarine Networks, updated 2026.
  21. Nicholas Shafer and Afaq Hussein, “A Network of Corridors Is the Only Reliable Hedge Against Middle East Chokepoint Disruptions,” Atlantic Council, 2025.
  22. Nicholas Shafer and Afaq Hussein, The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor: Connectivity in an Era of Geopolitical Uncertainty (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, 2025).
  23. Shafer and Hussein, The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor; Begin-Sadat-Center for Strategic Studies, “IMEC: A Corridor for Peace and Regional Stability,” 2025.
  24. The analytical instruments applied here are established: common-cause failure in reliability engineering, portfolio diversification, weaponised interdependence, and decision-making under deep uncertainty; see Vincent A. W. J. Marchau et al., eds., Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty: From Theory to Practice (Cham: Springer, 2019).

 

Iran’s Scepticism toward the IMEC: Geopolitical Concerns, Strategic Competition, and Regional Connectivity

Abstract

The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), announced at the 2023 G20 Summit, has emerged as a major connectivity initiative linking India to Europe via the Arabian Peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean. While supporters present IMEC as a framework to enhance trade, supply chains, energy connectivity, and regional integration, Iran has responded with considerable scepticism. This article examines the geopolitical, economic, and strategic factors underpinning Tehran’s reservations. It argues that Iran views IMEC not merely as a commercial project but as part of a broader geopolitical realignment associated with the Abraham Accords and emerging minilateral frameworks such as I2U2.

From Tehran’s perspective, the corridor is an exclusive model of regional connectivity that strengthens the strategic positions of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and the Israeli regime while bypassing Iranian territory. Iranian policymakers also view IMEC within an emerging “war of corridors,” in which competing infrastructure initiatives—including the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—serve as instruments of geopolitical competition. Beyond concerns about lost transit revenues and reduced strategic influence, Iran advocates a more inclusive model of Eurasian connectivity in which IMEC complements rather than competes with the INSTC. Such an approach, Tehran argues, would promote regional interdependence, improve transport efficiency, and contribute to a more stable and cooperative regional order.

Keywords: IMEC; Iran; International North–South Transport Corridor; Belt and Road Initiative; regional connectivity; geopolitics; West Asia

Introduction

Connectivity has become a central instrument of geopolitical competition in the twenty-first century. Infrastructure projects increasingly shape not only trade and investment but also political influence, strategic partnerships, and the regional order. Railways, ports, logistics hubs, and digital networks are now regarded as tools of geoeconomic statecraft, enabling states to enhance resilience, strengthen supply chains, and expand their regional influence.[1]

The announcement of the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) at the 2023 G20 Summit illustrates this transformation. Backed by India, the United States, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), France, Germany, and Italy, IMEC aims to connect India to Europe through integrated maritime and rail networks spanning the Arabian Peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean. Beyond facilitating trade, the initiative promotes cooperation in energy, digital infrastructure, customs harmonisation, and resilient supply chains.[2]

While participating governments emphasise the corridor’s economic benefits, Iran interprets IMEC through a broader geopolitical lens. Iranian policymakers argue that major transport corridors are inherently non-neutral, as they determine which states become indispensable transit hubs, attract foreign investment, and occupy strategic positions within regional supply chains.[3] Consequently, Tehran views IMEC not merely as a transport project but as part of a wider geopolitical realignment reshaping West Asia.

These concerns are closely linked to Iran’s long-term connectivity strategy. Over the past two decades, Tehran has invested heavily in developing the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), Chabahar Port, Bandar Abbas, and related infrastructure to position Iran as a principal gateway linking the Indian Ocean to Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia, and Europe.[4] From this perspective, initiatives that bypass Iranian territory have implications that extend beyond commerce, affecting the country’s long-term geopolitical influence.

Iranian analysts increasingly characterise this competition as a “war of corridors,” in which infrastructure projects embody competing visions of regional order. Alongside the INSTC and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), IMEC is regarded as one of several major connectivity initiatives through which states pursue strategic influence and institutionalise new political partnerships.[5]

Another factor shaping Tehran’s assessment is the broader political context of the Abraham Accords and the expanding cooperation among Israel, several Arab states, India, and the United States. Iranian officials argue that IMEC should be understood within this evolving regional architecture rather than as an isolated economic initiative. The inclusion of Israeli Mediterranean ports in the proposed corridor reinforces Tehran’s perception that IMEC supports an exclusive model of regional integration that marginalises Iran.[6]

This article argues that Iran’s scepticism towards IMEC is best understood through the lens of geopolitical exclusion. Tehran views the corridor as an infrastructure project that reroutes trade flows, strengthens rival regional actors, and diminishes Iran’s strategic importance in emerging Eurasian transport networks. Nevertheless, Iran does not reject regional connectivity. Instead, it advocates a more inclusive framework in which IMEC complements existing transport initiatives, particularly the INSTC, thereby maximising regional economic integration while minimising geopolitical fragmentation.[7]

The article is organised into five sections. It first examines Iran’s understanding of connectivity as an instrument of geopolitical power, then analyses Tehran’s interpretation of IMEC as an exclusive regional project. It then explores the concept of the “war of corridors,” assesses Iran’s economic and security concerns, and concludes by evaluating Tehran’s alternative vision for inclusive regional connectivity.

  1. 1. Iran’s Geopolitical Understanding of Connectivity

Iran’s response to the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) reflects a strategic understanding of connectivity that extends well beyond economic considerations. In Iranian foreign policy, transport infrastructure is viewed not merely as a means of facilitating trade but as an instrument of national power. Railways, ports, logistics hubs, energy corridors, and digital networks shape regional influence, economic resilience, and political partnerships. Consequently, connectivity has become a key component of Iran’s geoeconomic and security strategy.[8]

This perspective reflects Iran’s geographical position at the intersection of South Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf, and the Middle East. Historically, the Iranian plateau was a major crossroads linking East and West along the Silk Roads. Iranian policymakers continue to regard this location as a key strategic asset and argue that geography can confer long-term political and economic leverage when supported by modern transport infrastructure.[9]

The importance of connectivity became even more pronounced after the expansion of international sanctions in the 2000s. As sanctions restricted Iran’s access to international finance and markets, Tehran increasingly viewed transit diplomacy as a means to reduce economic vulnerability. By positioning itself as an indispensable transit hub linking the Indian Ocean to Eurasia, Iran sought to strengthen economic resilience while raising the geopolitical costs of its international isolation.[10]

These developments coincided with broader shifts in the global political economy. Major infrastructure initiatives, including China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), and the European Union’s Global Gateway, demonstrate that connectivity has become a central arena of geopolitical competition. Infrastructure increasingly serves both economic and strategic objectives by shaping trade routes, investment flows, and regional political relationships.[11]

In this context, the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC) plays a central role in Iran’s foreign and economic policy. Established in 2000 by India, Iran, and Russia, the INSTC aims to link the Indian Ocean with the Caspian Sea, Russia, Central Asia, and Northern Europe through integrated maritime, rail, and road networks. For Tehran, the project is more than a transport route; it is a long-term strategy to transform Iran into a major Eurasian transit hub and to capitalise on its geographical advantages.[12]

Iran has complemented the INSTC by making substantial investments in Chabahar Port, Bandar Abbas, the Makoran coast, and national railway infrastructure. These projects aim to connect southern ports with inland markets and neighbouring regions, thereby strengthening Iran’s role in regional logistics. These investments demonstrate that Tehran views infrastructure as a source of strategic influence rather than merely a source of commercial revenue.[13]

Iranian officials also link connectivity to strategic autonomy. Diversified transport corridors reduce reliance on vulnerable maritime chokepoints and provide alternative trade routes during periods of geopolitical tension. In this sense, transport infrastructure contributes directly to national security by strengthening economic resilience and mitigating the effects of sanctions and political pressure.[14]

This strategic outlook explains why Tehran assesses new regional transport initiatives primarily on their geopolitical consequences. Major corridors shape patterns of investment, industrial development, and diplomatic engagement by determining which states become indispensable transit hubs. Countries along these routes often gain political influence alongside economic benefits, whereas those bypassed risk a gradual decline in strategic relevance.[15]

Accordingly, Iran interprets IMEC not merely as another commercial route linking India and Europe, but as an initiative that redistributes geopolitical influence towards rival regional actors while excluding Iranian territory. Although Tehran does not oppose new transport corridors in principle, it argues that infrastructure projects should promote inclusive regional connectivity rather than reinforce geopolitical divisions. From this perspective, IMEC is assessed primarily by its implications for Iran’s long-term strategic position rather than by its immediate economic benefits.[16]

Ultimately, Iran’s understanding of connectivity underpins its scepticism towards IMEC. Infrastructure is viewed as an instrument of geopolitical competition that shapes the regional order, political partnerships, and economic influence. This perspective also underpins Tehran’s growing characterisation of contemporary Eurasian infrastructure development as a “war of corridors,” in which competing transport networks increasingly serve as tools of strategic rivalry rather than merely facilitating international commerce.

  1. 2. IMEC through Tehran’s Strategic Lens: Geopolitical Exclusion and Regional Realignment

Iran interprets the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) differently from its principal sponsors. While participating governments present the initiative as a means to improve trade, supply-chain resilience, digital connectivity, and sustainable economic development, Tehran views it primarily as a geopolitical project within a broader regional realignment. From the Iranian perspective, transport corridors are not politically neutral; they shape regional power relations, institutionalise strategic partnerships, and influence the distribution of economic and political power.[17]

This interpretation is closely linked to Iran’s long-standing effort to capitalise on its strategic geography. Successive governments have sought to transform Iran into a major Eurasian transit hub by investing in the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), Chabahar Port, Bandar Abbas, and related transport infrastructure. Consequently, a major corridor connecting India and Europe, which bypasses Iranian territory, is perceived not merely as an alternative commercial route but as a challenge to Iran’s long-term geoeconomic strategy.[18]

A central concept shaping Tehran’s assessment is geopolitical exclusion. Iranian analysts argue that transport corridors create durable patterns of economic interdependence by channeling trade, investment, logistics, and diplomatic engagement towards participating states. Countries along these routes often gain greater strategic importance, whereas those excluded risk gradual marginalisation. From this perspective, IMEC redistributes regional influence by strengthening alternative transit hubs and reducing Iran’s potential role in Eurasian connectivity.[19]

Iranian concerns are reinforced by the political context in which IMEC emerged. Tehran associates the corridor with broader regional developments following the Abraham Accords and the expansion of cooperation among India, the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Although IMEC is officially presented as an economic initiative, Iranian policymakers contend that its implementation depends on sustained political cooperation among these partners. As a result, the corridor is interpreted as an institutional expression of an emerging regional order rather than a purely commercial undertaking.[20]

Within Iranian strategic discourse, IMEC therefore represents an exclusive model of regional connectivity. Tehran argues that economically efficient transport networks should include all geographically relevant states, regardless of political differences. Iranian officials contend that excluding countries occupying central geographic positions reduces economic efficiency and reinforces geopolitical divisions. In this view, connectivity should function as a regional public good that promotes interdependence and stability rather than political polarisation.[21]

A particularly significant concern is the role assigned to Israel within the proposed corridor. Under IMEC, Israeli Mediterranean ports, especially Haifa, would become major gateways linking the Arabian Peninsula with European markets. Iranian policymakers believe that such a role would strengthen Israel’s position in regional logistics, attract investment, and deepen its integration into regional supply chains. Beyond economic implications, Tehran views this development as enhancing Israel’s strategic influence within West Asia.[22]

Iranian analysts further argue that infrastructure fosters long-term institutional relationships. Transport corridors promote customs harmonisation, regulatory cooperation, investment coordination, and technological integration among participating states. Over time, these arrangements strengthen political partnerships and enhance their resilience. Consequently, Tehran regards IMEC as reinforcing the broader political consequences of Arab–Israeli normalisation by embedding the Israeli regime more deeply in the region’s economic architecture.[23]

International sanctions have further intensified Iran’s concerns. As sanctions have constrained foreign investment and economic integration, Tehran has increasingly relied on transit diplomacy to preserve its regional relevance. Becoming a major transit hub has therefore become an important element of Iran’s strategy to mitigate economic isolation. Exclusion from a high-profile initiative such as IMEC is viewed not only as a potential loss of transit revenue but also as a weakening of one of Iran’s principal geopolitical assets.[24]

Nevertheless, Iran does not reject regional connectivity. Iranian officials consistently emphasise that expanded transport infrastructure can promote trade, economic development, and regional cooperation. Their principal criticism concerns the design of IMEC rather than the broader objective of connectivity. Tehran argues that integrating existing infrastructure—including the INSTC, Chabahar Port, and Bandar Abbas—into wider Eurasian transport networks would yield greater economic efficiency while reducing geopolitical fragmentation.[25]

In sum, Iran’s interpretation of IMEC reflects a broader understanding of infrastructure as a strategic instrument. The corridor is seen not merely as a transport project but as part of an evolving regional order that strengthens rival actors, institutionalises new political partnerships, and diminishes Iran’s geopolitical significance. These concerns underpin Tehran’s broader conception of an emerging “war of corridors,” in which competing connectivity initiatives increasingly serve geopolitical as well as economic objectives.

  1. 3. The Emerging “War of Corridors”: Iran’s Perception of Strategic Competition

The announcement of the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) has reinforced an increasingly influential concept in Iranian strategic thinking: the “war of corridors.” Although not a formal theory of international relations, the term is widely used by Iranian policymakers and scholars to describe the growing competition among major transport and connectivity initiatives. In this view, infrastructure has evolved from a purely economic asset into a strategic instrument through which states compete for influence, shape regional integration, and redefine the political geography of Eurasia.[26]

This perspective reflects a broader transformation in international politics. Whereas geopolitical competition traditionally centred on military power and territorial control, contemporary rivalries increasingly focus on infrastructure, trade routes, logistics hubs, energy networks, and digital connectivity. Transport corridors shape not only the movement of goods but also patterns of investment, technological cooperation, and diplomatic engagement. As a result, geoeconomics has become an increasingly important dimension of statecraft, with infrastructure serving as a means of projecting influence without direct military confrontation.[27]

Iranian analysts argue that this evolution has produced competing visions of regional order. From Tehran’s perspective, the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and IMEC are not merely transport projects; they represent alternative geopolitical frameworks, each backed by distinct political coalitions and strategic objectives. The competition among these initiatives therefore concerns not only trade routes but also the future organisation of Eurasia’s political and economic landscape.[28]

For Iran, the INSTC remains the cornerstone of its connectivity strategy. Established in 2000 by India, Iran, and Russia, the corridor aims to link the Indian Ocean with the Caspian Sea, Russia, Central Asia, and Northern Europe via integrated maritime, rail, and road infrastructure. Tehran regards the project as the most effective way to utilise Iran’s geographical position while strengthening economic resilience and regional influence. Since 2022, cooperation with Russia has further heightened the INSTC’s strategic significance as both countries seek alternatives to Western-controlled transport routes and financial networks.[29]

Against this backdrop, IMEC is seen as a competing connectivity architecture. Iranian officials generally avoid portraying the initiative as a direct replacement for the INSTC, yet they recognise that both projects seek investment, cargo flows, and international political support. Tehran therefore fears that future infrastructure financing and commercial traffic may increasingly favour routes that bypass Iranian territory, thereby reducing the strategic value of decades of domestic investment in ports, railways, and logistics infrastructure.[30]

Iran also assesses IMEC in the broader context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Since deepening its strategic partnership with Beijing, Tehran has viewed the BRI as complementary to its ambition to become a principal Eurasian transit hub. Some Iranian analysts therefore interpret IMEC as part of a wider effort by the United States and its partners to promote alternative connectivity networks that reduce dependence on Chinese-led infrastructure and, indirectly, on Iran’s strategic location.[31]

Nevertheless, Iranian scholarship generally avoids reducing this competition to a simple binary choice between rival blocs. Many analysts argue that Eurasia is witnessing the emergence of multiple, overlapping connectivity initiatives that both compete and coexist. The central concern is therefore not the existence of alternative routes but whether they are designed to encourage cooperation or geopolitical fragmentation. This distinction explains why Iranian commentators increasingly describe connectivity itself as the principal arena of strategic competition in the twenty-first century.[32]

Another important theme in Iranian strategic discourse is the securitisation of connectivity. Tehran argues that transport infrastructure can become an instrument of political pressure if participation depends on strategic alignment rather than universally accepted commercial principles. In such circumstances, connectivity ceases to function as a regional public good and instead becomes a mechanism for strengthening preferred political coalitions while excluding rival states. Iranian analysts believe that IMEC reflects this trend, as participating countries have simultaneously expanded cooperation across economic, technological, and security domains.[33]

From Tehran’s perspective, exclusion from major transport networks has consequences that extend beyond commerce. Countries along strategic corridors often attract manufacturing investment, logistics, financial services, and diplomatic engagement, thereby enhancing their geopolitical influence. States outside these networks risk a gradual decline in regional relevance, regardless of their geographical advantages. Consequently, Iran views the “war of corridors” as a competition for long-term strategic influence rather than merely for transport efficiency.[34]

At the same time, Iranian scholars acknowledge that connectivity need not be a zero-sum contest. Several analysts argue that Eurasian transport would benefit more from complementarity than from rivalry. Integrating the INSTC, IMEC, and other regional initiatives into a broader multimodal network could diversify trade routes, improve supply-chain resilience, and reduce unnecessary duplication of infrastructure investment. Such a framework, however, would require a more inclusive approach to regional connectivity than Tehran currently adopts in the design of IMEC.[35]

In summary, Iran’s concept of the “war of corridors” reflects a broader transformation in international politics, in which infrastructure has become a central instrument of geopolitical competition. Transport corridors increasingly shape regional influence, economic partnerships, and strategic alignments. From Tehran’s perspective, IMEC is therefore not merely a commercial initiative but part of a wider contest over the future political and economic order of Eurasia.

  1. 4. Iran’s Security Concerns: IMEC, Regional Realignment, and the Politics of Connectivity

Iran’s scepticism towards the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) goes beyond concerns about trade diversion and transit competition. Tehran regards the initiative as part of a broader transformation of the security and political landscape of West Asia. In Iranian strategic thinking, infrastructure projects increasingly shape regional alliances, economic interdependence, and security arrangements. Consequently, IMEC is viewed not merely as a transport corridor but as part of an emerging geopolitical architecture involving the United States, India, Israel, and several Arab states.[36]

A key factor shaping this perception is the evolving political landscape following the Abraham Accords and the expansion of minilateral initiatives such as I2U2. Iranian analysts argue that these developments show that economic cooperation, technology, infrastructure, and security are increasingly interconnected. From Tehran’s perspective, transport corridors institutionalise political partnerships by creating long-term networks of trade, investment, and regulatory cooperation. Accordingly, IMEC is seen as reinforcing a regional order in which Iran plays only a limited role.[37]

The most sensitive aspect of the corridor concerns the enhanced position of the Israeli regime. Under the proposed route, Israeli Mediterranean ports—particularly Haifa—would serve as gateways linking the Arabian Peninsula to European markets. Iranian policymakers believe this role would significantly strengthen Israel’s geoeconomic position by integrating it more deeply into regional supply chains and logistics networks. Beyond commercial gains, Tehran argues that infrastructure generates lasting political influence by encouraging sustained diplomatic, technological, and institutional cooperation among participating states.[38]

Iran also views IMEC as reinforcing the broader political consequences of Arab–Israeli normalisation. Increased economic interdependence, supported by shared infrastructure, may deepen cooperation among participating governments and make these partnerships more durable. From Tehran’s perspective, the corridor therefore contributes to the consolidation of a regional order that is increasingly independent of Iranian influence.[39]

Another important concern is the securitisation of connectivity. Iranian scholars argue that transport infrastructure has become closely linked to national security because it determines access to markets, technology, investment, and strategic partnerships. In an era of geopolitical competition, railways, ports, digital networks, and energy corridors influence not only economic development but also diplomatic leverage and crisis resilience. Consequently, infrastructure planning has become an integral part of national security policy.[40]

Closely related is the notion of the weaponisation of connectivity. Tehran argues that transport networks may increasingly be organised along political lines rather than by commercial efficiency, rewarding strategic partners while excluding rival states. Although governments supporting IMEC reject this characterisation, Iranian officials contend that the composition of participating countries reinforces perceptions that geopolitical considerations played a decisive role in the corridor’s design.[41]

These concerns are closely linked to Iran’s transit strategy. Over the past two decades, Tehran has invested heavily in Chabahar Port, Bandar Abbas, and the Makran coast, which are key components of the International North–South Transport Corridor. Chabahar, in particular, is regarded as the cornerstone of Iran’s eastern connectivity strategy because it provides direct access to the Indian Ocean outside the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian policymakers fear that if IMEC attracts future investment and cargo flows, the strategic and commercial potential of these infrastructure projects could be significantly diminished despite their favourable geographic location.[42]

Iran also assesses IMEC in light of the Strait of Hormuz’s long-term significance, one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints. Although IMEC is unlikely to replace maritime trade through the Persian Gulf, Iranian analysts argue that expanding overland transport corridors could gradually diversify regional logistics. Over time, this diversification may reduce the Strait’s geopolitical importance and, by extension, diminish one of Iran’s longstanding strategic advantages.[43]

Overall, Tehran regards IMEC as more than an infrastructure initiative. It is seen as part of a broader restructuring of regional politics, combining economic integration, political realignment, and strategic competition. This perspective explains why Iran continues to advocate an alternative model of regional connectivity based on inclusiveness and complementarity rather than on competing geopolitical blocs.

  1. 5. Iran’s Alternative Vision of Regional Connectivity: From Strategic Competition to Inclusive Regionalism

Although Iran has consistently criticised the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), it does not oppose regional connectivity per se. On the contrary, Iranian policymakers argue that expanding transport networks is essential to promote trade, economic growth, and regional stability. Their principal objection concerns what they perceive as the corridor’s exclusive institutional design, which favours politically aligned states while bypassing geographically central actors such as Iran. Tehran therefore advocates a more inclusive model of Eurasian connectivity in which transport initiatives complement rather than compete with one another.[44]

This vision is rooted in Iran’s longstanding aspiration to serve as a bridge between South Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf, and Europe. Successive governments have regarded the country’s strategic location as one of its greatest comparative advantages and have invested in railways, ports, highways, and logistics infrastructure to translate that geographic position into sustainable economic and political influence.[45]

The cornerstone of this strategy is the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC). Linking the Indian Ocean with the Caspian Sea, Russia, Central Asia, and Northern Europe, the INSTC remains central to Iran’s economic diplomacy. Tehran argues that the corridor offers one of the shortest and most cost-effective routes between South Asia and Eurasia, while diversifying regional supply chains and reducing dependence on traditional maritime routes.[46]

Within this broader framework, Chabahar Port holds a particularly important position. Situated on the Gulf of Oman, outside the Strait of Hormuz, Chabahar provides direct access to the Indian Ocean and serves as the focal point of Iran’s eastern connectivity strategy. Together with Bandar Abbas and the ongoing development of the Makoran coast, these projects aim to integrate maritime trade with inland transport networks extending towards Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Russia.[47]

Rather than viewing IMEC and the INSTC as inherently incompatible, many Iranian analysts argue that the two corridors could complement each other within a wider Eurasian transport network. Linking these initiatives through multimodal infrastructure would offer greater flexibility for international trade, strengthen supply-chain resilience, and maximise the economic benefits of existing investments. From Tehran’s perspective, cooperation among regional transport projects would yield greater long-term efficiency than competition among rival corridors.[48]

This approach reflects Iran’s broader preference for inclusive regionalism. Iranian officials maintain that connectivity initiatives should remain open to all geographically relevant states, regardless of political disagreements. They argue that infrastructure should serve as a regional public good, encouraging economic interdependence, reducing political tensions, and supporting sustainable development. Excluding countries from major transport networks on geopolitical grounds risks increasing regional fragmentation and reducing overall economic efficiency.[49]

Iran has sought to reinforce this vision through a more diversified approach to regional diplomacy. Improved relations with several Arab neighbours, stronger partnerships with Russia and China, and participation in emerging Eurasian institutions all reflect Tehran’s effort to promote a multipolar regional order based on overlapping economic partnerships rather than exclusive geopolitical blocs.[50]

Iranian strategic discourse therefore distinguishes between competitive and cooperative connectivity. The former emphasises infrastructure as a tool for strategic rivalry and political exclusion, whereas the latter views transport networks as mechanisms for promoting shared prosperity and regional stability. Tehran consistently presents the INSTC within this second framework, arguing that long-term regional development depends on integrating rather than dividing Eurasian transport systems.[51]

Nevertheless, Iranian policymakers recognise that this vision faces substantial obstacles. International sanctions, geopolitical rivalries, unresolved regional conflicts, and competing interests among major powers continue to impede the development of an integrated Eurasian transport architecture. Despite these challenges, Tehran maintains that sustainable regional stability ultimately requires greater economic interdependence rather than competing geopolitical corridors.

In this sense, Iran’s response to IMEC should not be read as a rejection of connectivity. Rather, it reflects a preference for a regional order in which transport infrastructure promotes cooperation, inclusiveness, and mutual economic benefit, rather than reinforcing political divisions.

Conclusion

The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is one of the most significant connectivity initiatives to emerge in West Asia in recent years. While its supporters emphasise trade facilitation, supply-chain resilience, and economic integration, Iran interprets the project within a broader geopolitical framework. As this article has argued, Tehran regards IMEC not merely as a transport corridor but as part of an evolving regional order that redistributes strategic influence and reshapes Eurasian connectivity.

Iran’s scepticism stems from its view of infrastructure as an instrument of geopolitical power. Transport corridors shape not only the movement of goods but also patterns of investment, political cooperation, and regional influence. Because Iran has invested heavily in the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), Chabahar Port, Bandar Abbas, and related infrastructure, initiatives that bypass its territory are seen as challenges to its long-term geoeconomic strategy rather than merely alternative commercial routes.

The article shows that Tehran interprets IMEC through the lens of geopolitical exclusion. Iranian policymakers associate the corridor with broader regional realignments, including the Abraham Accords, expanding Arab–Israeli cooperation, and emerging minilateral partnerships. From this perspective, IMEC reflects an exclusive model of connectivity that strengthens rival regional actors while diminishing Iran’s strategic role in Eurasian transport networks.

The analysis has also shown that Iranian strategic thinking increasingly frames contemporary infrastructure development as a “war of corridors.” Competing initiatives—including IMEC, the INSTC, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative—offer alternative visions of regional order in which connectivity serves both economic and geopolitical objectives. Infrastructure has therefore become a central instrument of geoeconomic competition.

At the same time, Iran does not oppose regional integration. Rather, it advocates an inclusive model of connectivity in which major transport corridors complement one another and foster broader regional interdependence. Such an approach, Tehran argues, would improve economic efficiency while reducing geopolitical fragmentation.

Ultimately, the debate over IMEC reflects a broader transformation in international politics. Connectivity is no longer merely an economic issue but a key dimension of strategic competition and regional governance. The future success of Eurasian transport initiatives will depend not only on infrastructure investment but also on their ability to reconcile competing geopolitical interests. Whether regional actors pursue rivalry or complementarity will significantly shape the evolving political and economic landscape of West Asia.

Author Brief Bio: Prof. Mohammad Reza Dehshiri is the Dean of the School of International Relations (SIR), since 25 July 2023 and Full Professor of Political Science and member of Scientific Board at School of International Relations (SIR), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Islamic Republic of Iran (Since Sep. 2004)  

Endnotes:

[1] Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris, War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016); Parag Khanna, Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (New York: Random House, 2016).

[2] G20, “G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration” (New Delhi: G20, 2023); G20, “Memorandum of Understanding on the Principles of an India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor” (New Delhi: G20, 2023).

[3] Khanna, Connectography.

[4] Hamidreza Azizi, “Iran’s Regional Connectivity Strategy and Eurasian Geopolitics,” Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs 15, no. 1 (2024): 23–49.

[5] Bruno Maçães, Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order (London: Hurst, 2018).

[6] Anoushiravan Ehteshami, “Iran and the Emerging Geopolitics of Connectivity,” Asian Affairs 54, no. 2 (2023): 185–205; Sanam Vakil, “Regional Order and Strategic Competition in the Gulf,” Survival 63, no. 2 (2021): 7–28.

[7] Seyed Hossein Mousavian, “Iran and Regional Connectivity in Eurasia,” Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs 14, no. 1 (2023): 45–72.

[8] Blackwill and Harris, War by Other Means.

[9] Richard N. Frye, The Heritage of Persia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962).

[10] Rouhollah K. Ramazani, Iran’s Foreign Policy: Both North and South (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992); Shireen T. Hunter, “Iran’s Foreign Policy in a Changing Regional Environment,” Middle East Policy 27, no. 3 (2020): 28–45.

[11] Blackwill and Harris, War by Other Means; Khanna, Connectography.

[12] International North–South Transport Corridor Coordination Council, “Agreement on the International North–South Transport Corridor” (St Petersburg, 2000).

[13] Azizi, “Iran’s Regional Connectivity Strategy.”

[14] Mousavian, “Iran and Regional Connectivity.”

[15] Ehteshami, “Iran and the Emerging Geopolitics of Connectivity.”

[16] Maçães, Belt and Road.

[17] Blackwill and Harris, War by Other Means.

[18] Azizi, “Iran’s Regional Connectivity Strategy.”

[19] Blackwill and Harris, War by Other Means.

[20] Vakil, “Regional Order and Strategic Competition.”

[21] Ehteshami, “Iran and the Emerging Geopolitics of Connectivity.”

[22] Jonathan Fulton, “The Gulf, China, and Emerging Connectivity Corridors,” Asian Affairs 51, no. 3 (2020): 347–65.

[23] Vali Nasr, The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat (New York: Doubleday, 2013).

[24] Hunter, “Iran’s Foreign Policy in a Changing Regional Environment.”

[25] Mousavian, “Iran and Regional Connectivity.”

[26] Blackwill and Harris, War by Other Means.

[27] Khanna, Connectography.

[28] Maçães, Belt and Road; Nadège Rolland, China’s Eurasian Century? Political and Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2017).

[29] INSTC Coordination Council, “Agreement on the INSTC”; Azizi, “Iran’s Regional Connectivity Strategy.”

[30] Fulton, “The Gulf, China, and Emerging Connectivity Corridors.”

[31] Mohsen Shariatinia, “Iran and China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Opportunities and Challenges,” China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 18, no. 2 (2021): 59–81.

[32] Ehteshami, “Iran and the Emerging Geopolitics of Connectivity.”

[33] Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (New York: Henry Holt, 2023); Vakil, “Regional Order and Strategic Competition.”

[34] Blackwill and Harris, War by Other Means.

[35] Mousavian, “Iran and Regional Connectivity.”

[36] Vakil, “Regional Order and Strategic Competition.”

[37] Jonathan Fulton, The Gulf and the New Regionalism (London: Routledge, 2022).

[38] Jonathan Fulton, “China, the Gulf, and the Belt and Road Initiative,” Asian Affairs 50, no. 1 (2019): 84–103.

[39] Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006).

[40] Blackwill and Harris, War by Other Means.

[41] Farrell and Newman, Underground Empire.

[42] Azizi, “Iran’s Regional Connectivity Strategy.”

[43] Geoffrey Kemp and Robert E. Harkavy, Strategic Geography and the Changing Middle East (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1997).

[44] Mousavian, “Iran and Regional Connectivity.”

[45] Ramazani, Iran’s Foreign Policy.

[46] INSTC Coordination Council, “Agreement on the INSTC.”

[47] Azizi, “Iran’s Regional Connectivity Strategy.”

[48] Khanna, Connectography.

[49] Ehteshami, “Iran and the Emerging Geopolitics of Connectivity.”

[50] Hamidreza Azizi, Iran’s Regional Policy after the Arab Uprisings (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).

[51] Blackwill and Harris, War by Other Means.

 

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