In a February White House meeting between US President Donald Trump and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trump doubled down on the trade route proposed by his predecessor, the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC), calling it the “‘greatest trade routes in all of history.”
It’s a route that has mostly floundered since Biden led a group announcing it at the 2023 G20 meeting.
Nevertheless, looking beyond the US support for the eschatological ambitions of Israel, IMEC highlights the US geopolitical goals in its and Israel’s current rampage in West Asia. Those are US and client state control over logistics corridors — or at least preventing the creation of ones connecting “unfriendly” states — and cementing Israel’s central role as a bridge between Europe, the Gulf, and India. As Guy Larson, a senior lecturer at the international relations department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, writes at The Hill:
[Trump] understands that, in the 21st century, power hinges on controlling trade corridors.
For decades, international relations scholars dismissed geography as obsolete, assuming globalization had flattened the world. Yet mountains, deserts and seas create chokepoints where states and non-state actors can disrupt trade and affect the global economy.
I would argue it’s not just Trump, but his focus is representative of the consensus in the US blob-think tank-oligarchy nexus. Regardless, the US is pushing forward with IMEC despite the considerable obstacles. According to the the White House, leaders of involved countries will convene in the coming months to announce new initiatives on the project.
So let’s take a dive into IMEC, its goals, significant hurdles, as well as the corridors the US is simultaneously trying to prevent.
What Is IMEC?
The IMEC is a network of railroads, ship-to-rail, road transport routes, energy pipelines and high-speed data cables connecting South Asia, the Gulf and Europe. The east corridor connects India to the Gulf, and the northern corridor connects the Gulf to Europe. Countries involved are India, Saudi Arabia, the EU, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Italy, and the US
In Trump speak: “we agreed to work together to help build one of the greatest trade routes in all of history. It will run from India to Israel to Italy and onward to the United States, connecting our partners by ports, railways, and undersea cables — many, many undersea cables. It’s a big development. It’s a lot of money going to be spent, and we’ve already spent some, but we’re going to be spending a lot more in order to stay advanced and stay the leader.” [1]
There are arguments that Hamas’ October 7 attack was part of an attempt by the Axis of Resistance to throw a wrench in the IMEEC plans. But then one must also consider the explanation that the attack was at least allowed to happen over the most heavily guarded border in the world in order to allow the US-Israel to “remake” the region. IMEC is a key component of that vision.
Why?
There is already the Suez Canal route between India and Europe. The key about IMEC is that it is a geopolitical project more than a geoeconomic one. Indeed, as we’ll see later, the economics of the route hardly make sense. So what do its backers envision?
- Normalization of ties between Israel and the Gulf states, but October 7 and the Israeli genocidal response threw the entire project into question.
- Make India the low-wage manufacturer for the West, replacing China and China-friendly supply chains.
- Establish a new East-West trade route that does not include China, Iran or Russia while simultaneously pulling India away from the China-Russia economic bloc toward the West.
- At the same time, strangle competing logistics networks. We see this at work constantly with efforts to sabotage China’s BRI and the International North-South Transport Corridor, which only had new life breathed into it because US efforts to isolate Russia and the genocide in Gaza causing countries to look for alternatives to Red Sea transit.
- Others, such as one that was to run from Iran through Iraq to Syria’s Latakia Port (where Russia has a presence), are all but dead due to the American-Zionist-Al Qaeda destruction of Syria.
Trump’s “maximum pressure” on Iran is working to derail the others. Consider Iran’s Chabahar Port, which the Trump administration sanctioned in February. What does that mean? From The Diplomat:
[The sanctions] primarily affect the geoeconomic interests of India, which has been modernizing Chabahar for many years and has spent tens of thousands of dollars on the project. The port plays a critical role in New Delhi’s transport strategy, providing access to the markets of Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia while bypassing its main opponent in the region, Pakistan. At the same time, Chabahar is a key link in the supply chain between India and Russia, organized under the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).
…The port of Chabahar has direct access to the Indian Ocean, making it a valuable asset for many countries in continental Asia. The facility is involved in the operation of international trade routes connecting Central Asia with the Middle East. The earliest of these was launched in 2016 on the basis of the Ashgabat Agreement. The Central Asia-Persian Gulf transport and transit corridor consists of two parts: one running on the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway, and the other via sea from the Iranian ports of Bandar Abbas or Chabahar to the Oman coast of the Persian Gulf.
Uzbekistan, a landlocked country, has shown particular interest in the transit potential of Chabahar. Tashkent was granted the right to jointly use the Iranian port in the open ocean. The construction of a logistics center on the Shahid Beheshti terminal is planned, which is expected to boost Uzbekistan’s foreign trade, including with such an economic giant as India. In 2024, trade between Uzbekistan and India reached almost $1 billion. For greater efficiency the parties intend to create a new multimodal corridor, Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-India, using the Chabahar port. Other Central Asian countries, such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which depend on Uzbek transit for access to sea routes, may join this project in the future.
While the targeting of Chabahar hurts India as well as Iran, the US and Israel have other offers for New Delhi, which is eager for the opportunity.
‘Operation Beepers’ – “We Want it Here.”
In February, an Israeli business delegation to New Delhi included over 100 Israeli companies, in the areas of cybersecurity, digital health, AI, and big data. During the visit India’s Commerce & Industry Ministry, Piyush Goyal said the following:
“Israel’s capabilities in innovation and security are extraordinary, and the technology demonstrated in ‘Operation Beepers‘ [a reference to Israel’s clandestine operation on the Hezbollah terror group in September] is truly inspiring and unique — we want it here too. There are immense opportunities for collaboration between Israel and India, which will lead to significant geopolitical and economic achievements in the region.”
IMEC is better viewed as an effort to forge geopolitical ties between participants and strengthen Israel’s position in the region often through the sharing of Israeli killing- and population-control technology. The Indians aren’t the only ones taking a keen interest in this type of Israeli tech. Dovi Frances, an Israeli-American founding partner of the Los Angeles-based venture capital firm Group 11, is a major Trump backer. He’s also helping set up an AI National Directorate in Israel under Netanyahu with involvement from Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever who after leaving the ChatGPT developer founded SST, a new AI company based in San Francisco and Tel Aviv. Here’s Frances writing in The Jerusalem Post about the Trump-Israel pitch:
Gulf investors have quietly begun to join Israeli-related tech companies’ cap tables, injecting capital into Israeli firms, often without public announcement. These activities—both sales and investments—highlight the growing economic ties between Israel and the Gulf and the immense interest from both sides in fostering deeper technological collaboration.
Under the Trump administration, with the expansion of agreements to include Saudi Arabia, Israeli AI companies could serve as platforms for entire industries in the Gulf, including education, banking, healthcare, and cybersecurity.
…The political instability in the Middle East, the AI revolution, and the US political landscape are not isolated from each other—they are intertwined.
Are they ever? Again, here’s Guy Larson at The Hill:
[Trump] does not seek disengagement from the Middle East. Rather, he wants to reassert American hegemony. He believes that to maintain global leadership, Washington must control the trade corridors of Eurasia. His approach focuses on neutralizing Iran through economic pressure and diplomatic negotiations, stabilizing Gaza by implementing the hostage deal and pressuring Saudi Arabia with outlandish statements to push it into a peace deal with Israel.
Should Riyadh move toward normalization with Israel without demanding a diplomatic process for Palestinian statehood, Trump would abandon his Gaza displacement plan as swiftly as he dropped his 25 percent tariff threat against Canada and Mexico. For him, rhetoric is leverage — his real goal is restoring American dominance over global trade routes.
So what we see with the IMEC vision is the the next level of fusion between tech, finance and government — and their sales pitch is a technological superiority invitation written in the blood of genocide.
In the Gulf, it’s also known as the normalization of ties with Israel. As we’ve seen over the past few years, these states make gestures in opposition to the Palestinian genocide but in reality do not care about it aside from how it complicates their rule of the local population. IMEC is about finalizing this process.
Problems
There are many. One can start with the simple economics of it all. IMEC, it is frequently said could cut transport times by up to 40 per cent, but it involves moving cargo via ships from India to the UAE, putting them onto trains going through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, and then back onto ships to go from Israel to Europe. Here’s a helpful visualization:
Uneconomical and seemingly pretty inefficient. And enters Europe via a Chinese operated port. https://t.co/befYuMQ9ox
— Evan A. Feigenbaum (@EvanFeigenbaum) September 11, 2023
Beijing is not keen on seeing India rise as a manufacturing powerhouse. Let’s consider what China is doing. Kyle Chan has a lot at High Capacity on the incredible amount of work China is doing to secure access to markets:
Chinese companies are racing to build factories around the world and forge new global supply chains, driven by a desire to circumvent tariffs and secure access to markets. Chinese companies have been building manufacturing plants directly in large target markets, such as the EU and Brazil. And they’ve been building plants in “connector countries” like Mexico and Vietnam that provide access to developed markets through trade agreements. Morocco, for example, has emerged as a surprisingly popular destination for Chinese investment tied to EV and battery manufacturing due to its trade agreements with both the US and the EU.
Just take a look at the map:
Notably China’s efforts are purposefully avoiding India:
[A]cross a number of industries, Beijing seems to be discouraging Chinese firms making future plans to invest in India while also limiting the flow of workers and equipment…
Beijing appears to be limiting Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn from bringing Chinese equipment and Chinese workers to India. Some of Foxconn’s Chinese workers in India were even told to return to China. This informal Chinese ban extends to other electronics firms working in India…Beijing has told Chinese automakers specifically not to invest in India…China has been reportedly blocking the export of Chinese solar equipment to India…[Tunnel boring machines] made in China by Germany’s Herrenknecht for export to India have been reportedly held up by Chinese customs.
Beijing is doing the same for countries like the Philippines, which is currently cooperating with the US in its bid to contain China.
And countries like Iran and Turkey, which is notably excluded from IMEC and is wholly opposed to it in its current form, have the capability to derail delicate logistics corridors the same way the US and its friends do. The sheer amount of heavy lifting the US needs to perform to get IMEC on track presents another series of issues. According to War on the Rocks:
The most instrumental way in which the Trump administration can support the corridor, along with other potential East-West corridors, is by addressing Middle Eastern instability. That means stewarding the distinct ceasefire agreements brokered by the Biden administration between Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Hamas and gradually turning them into more lasting political arrangements.
It may sound far-fetched today, nevertheless there are scenarios where elements of the corridor’s development are used to support Gaza’s rehabilitation.
We know what they have in mind for that “rehabilitation”:
Trump calls it “making Gaza beautiful again.” Israel calls it “Gaza 2035,” which involves rebuilding Gaza from nothing into a soulless tech “production center” that is a hub of IMEC. As ArtReview points out:
Before 8 October 2023, Gaza was already a modern, bustling city. It had a similar average density to London, a 97 percent literacy rate, 36 hospitals, 12 universities, parks, highrises, recreational beaches. If the goal is to ‘rebuild from nothing’, then it will be because Israel has razed the territory’s cities, towns and villages. The question is, who will it be rebuilt for?
…throughout the three ‘phases’ explained in the document, it becomes clear that the Palestinians permitted to live among the ruins of their homeland would provide cheap labour in this new ‘regional trade and energy hub’ intended for Israeli business interests.
It’s a project the Palestinians will not go along with. Nonetheless, War on the Rocks continues with what Trump must do:
A revitalized Gaza port under international supervision, for example, would be a boon for Palestinians. The port could also serve as a supporting spur to Haifa Port — purchased by Indian-owned Adani Group in 2023 — where many of the corridor’s plans currently hinge. In short, by drawing inspiration from the corridor, the Trump administration could incentivize the parties to reach a durable resolution to the war that would create a window of opportunity to revisit normalization efforts between Israel and Saudi Arabia and attract additional foreign investment to the region.
A similar logic could be applied when dealing with new governments in Lebanon and Syria. If leveraged in the right way, participation in East-West corridors could be a major incentive for new political actors to respect U.S. interests, maintain their commitment to keeping the peace, and further reduce Iranian, Russia, and Chinese influence.
In addition to these steps, the United States should devise a more effective mechanism for constraining Houthi aggression. The corridor is not a replacement for the Suez Canal, and therefore the secure passage of maritime traffic around the Horn of Africa and Red Sea should remain a top priority for America and its allies.
Last but not least, the Trump administration will need to identify the correct formula for containing Iran and severing supply chains between Tehran and its proxies. Without some kind of arrangement between the United States and Iran, it is safe to suspect that the Islamic regime will try to undermine efforts to develop an East-West corridor that leaves it out in the cold.
And so we see the Trump administration trying to make progress on this to-do list and finding limited success. And there’s little chance of IMEC finding the considerable financing it needs or Haifa port being the lynchpin to a global trade route while Yemeni bombs are hitting it.
We should also consider the possibility that the US, which isn’t so much in the business of building or backing mega projects like IMEC, is perfectly fine with setting the region ablaze as it prevents real Eurasian integration efforts.
Notes
[1] It was Interesting that Trump said Italy. Greece’s largest port in Piraeus has often been mentioned as the European entry point, but China’s COSCO Shipping owns a majority stake there and operates the port, making it a key component of the Belt and Road Initiative, which IMEC is supposed to counter. France and Italy are both vying for the IMEC’s European entry point with the latter preparing Trieste while France preps Marseille.
This whole scheme seems to be one dreamed up by Neocons who are not exactly renowned for their understanding of mundane things like logistics, industrial production and geographic limitations and it seems to have two main aims in its layout. The first is to split off India from BRICS by getting them to take part in this Rube Goldberg project. The second is to make Israel the pivot point for trade in the Mediterranean if not the bottleneck. India’s exports here are now under Israel’s sufference. Personally I would have thought that they would have wanted to have this route go to Egypt near the Suez canal which would have opened up the possibilities of loading cargo aboard ships going to and from Europe. Regardless.
So let’s see how this works out in practice. You have a container of goods loaded aboard a ship in India which then proceeds to head west, young man. It sails by Iran which may be why Trump is trying to force a deal with them so that they do not cause trouble. It is then, along with hundreds of other containers, offloaded and put aboard a train. Passing through the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan it arrives in Israel. They then take that container along with the several hundred others and load it aboard another boat which then goes to Greece. I would imagine that Trump’s idea is to have Greece kick the Chinese out of Piraeus port by then. After it hits Greece, that container along with all the others is then loaded aboard trucks which go their merry way. That is three transhipments along with the original loading aboard that ship in India. A few questions.
Won’t all those countries along that tortured route be collecting passage fees for all those goods? Is there even a railway line that can take all that cargo through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan & Israel in existence? Does one have to be built or maybe some sections upgraded? Who is going to pay for all the infrastructure – including the rolling stock – in those middle eastern countries? Is it even economically feasible? Could those trains be vulnerable to drone attacks by certain players who have decided that two can play this game. How will security and customs be handled? If I was a Neocon I would just wave my hands and of course all these problems would go away.
Rev Kev: Israel as the pinch point. Bingo. Most likely, the contribution of the Israeli government will be to monitor all shipments, jettisoning anything inconvenient. And there will be plenty of electronic paperwork to mine for information.
You refer to the Piraeus-Berlin mini-video. It isn’t that the Balkans are dangerous, but sending goods through five or six small Balkan countries (I’ll throw in Austria) with limited infrastructures is a recipe for delays. It isn’t that these countries are corrupt — some may be. But how do Albania and Montenegro handle such levels of road traffic?
The top map, which is hard to read, but happens to derive from the IMEC entry at Wikipedia, is sheer geographic nonsense. As Conor Gallagher mentions, the Italians would have to prepare Trieste (or Genova, or both). They are the main Italian ports. Presenting a map that shows Gioia Tauro and Golfo Aranci (population 2,500) is not serious. Roma is no longer much of a port — although it was a river port and has some remains of those days.
There is a fantasy element to this whole IMEC shebang. There is a reason that the Silk Road didn’t follow this route: Look at the geography. But the geography is now inconvenient because Iran (and Oman) are in the way. Too bad that the Anglosphere geniuses planning IMEC “don’t no much about geography.”
Good point about the Balkans. I had not considered the effect of all that extra heavy traffic on the roads and highways there. And like with the Italian ports, who is going to pay for all this? Will the EU have the resources or the will to do it? I’m surprised that they did not try to rout it through the Ukraine as well. :)
When the British Empire tried to run this scheme in the previous century, it made more sense (at least they used the Suez Canal), but was still fraught with problems.
Now, we’re going to re-do this whole project, except dumber? Because Israel MUST be at the center of it!
Like the plan to choke Russia to death and force regime change, this one is just non-sensical.
All this running around like chickens with their heads cut off. EVERY country.
That’s all I could envision as I read the convoluted plans and actions.
It’s like they all went to the same school(s) of economics…oh wait…
“split off India from BRICS by getting them to take part in this Rube Goldberg project.”
From the sound of this part, China is working on that without the help of this alleged project:
“Notably China’s efforts are purposefully avoiding India:
[A]cross a number of industries, Beijing seems to be discouraging Chinese firms making future plans to invest in India while also limiting the flow of workers and equipment…
Beijing appears to be limiting Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn from bringing Chinese equipment and Chinese workers to India. Some of Foxconn’s Chinese workers in India were even told to return to China. This informal Chinese ban extends to other electronics firms working in India…Beijing has told Chinese automakers specifically not to invest in India…China has been reportedly blocking the export of Chinese solar equipment to India…[Tunnel boring machines] made in China by Germany’s Herrenknecht for export to India have been reportedly held up by Chinese customs.”
Shipping containers going through Israel, you say? Didn’t Ghislain Maxwell’s father Robert flog a backdoor’d PROMIS to INTEL agencies for Israel?
https://www.renegadetribune.com/whats-really-going-on-with-shipping-containers-and-human-trafficking/
India has given up on their plan to lure manufacturers to the country, https://www.reuters.com/markets/emerging/indias-23-bln-plan-rival-china-factories-lapse-after-it-disappoints-2025-03-21/
Apple will also be spending close to USD 500 billion dollars building factories in the US, https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more-than-500-billion-usd-in-the-us-over-the-next-four-years/ so I think Made In India will slowly trickle into nothingness.
Europe needs to be re-shoring manufacturing as well. Unless they think India will take IOU’s as China did.
Belt Road Initiative and the complements are far ahead,. India has invested in Chabahar port in Iran linking to BRI.
Maybe it would bring Indian tourists to Mar a Lago on the Med…..
Indian tourists are increasingly regarded as suspect in the UK. First generation immigrants from the Indian subcontinent integrated well (after rocky start – there were race riots here in Nottingham). Now I’d say things run pretty smoothly.
However there are new things that are resuscitating old racial issues: spam callers. Our so called nationwide anti spam service is a joke. Plus I’ve watched several YouTubers who have made it their mission to unmask the spammers and 99% of ACTUAL VIDEO feeds (used by bosses to watch employees) are from India. It doesn’t take me being PC literate to pick up on this. Tech illiterate people round here like my mother have cottoned on and that is NOT good for racial integration.
I really don’t think Indian tourists are going to get the same welcome they used to. 3 of the 4 other houses in our street are owned by people (1st or 2nd gen Indian subcontinent immigrants). They act and vote like Anglos.
Relying on Indians in future will not work. If in doubt, just look at Gedling voting numbers at elections. Votes beat my anecdotes. PS our immediate neighbours are Muslims of Pakistani origin. Best neighbours ever. And boyoboyoboy do they make good curries!
I am in USA.
I have the best feelings for Indian Americans, limited sample though. My step son married the daughter of newly immigrated family. I have come to respect them greatly, yes her Mom serves delicious Indian food.
The other family is long in USA immigrants, highly successful and also wonderful people.
Further, I have two Catholic priests who came toUSA to serve, also wonderful men. My parish needs them.
Yes a small sample.
This helps chart the demonic rationale rather than irrational motive behind the uses of Israel and the whims of the “indispensable” US blob. The list of ‘road kill’ in this race grows long.
If this logistics scheme shows signs it might work, perhaps the Houthies could be more useful to Moscow and Bejing than they currently imagine (yet don’t exploit). Of course a much easier and more prosperous path for The West that would facilitate the BEST trade route would be to lift sanctions on Iran and Russia and stop destabilizing Armenia and others and let businesses do their business.
Speaking of Armenia, there have been news for a few days now that Pashinian did a sudden 180 (or is it 540 in modern diplomatic talk?) and ordered all levels of Armenian government to restore relations with Russia. He also announced he will be in Moscow for 9th May celebration.
Big news. Seems Armenia woke up. Deep gonna have a sad.
Reports today that Iran is putting 600 km range missiles on the islands at the mouth of the Straight of Hormuz now. Did they ever stand down their reserves from the New Year exercises ? Apparently they also recalled their reserve Air Force pilots. Looks like they expect to get attacked. It will be the job of the marines on that helicopter carrier to neutralise such missiles.
I don’t think a direct attack on Iran is being contemplated yet, just clearing up all their assets in the region like in Syria….Lebanon, Iran backed milia’s in Iraq, Yemen. Turkey and Israel are getting pretty over-extended already, they will need direct US backing to cover such an extended area.
I wonder when in a supreme act of global karma, China starts to restrict investment in its electric car plants etc in the west or western vassal states for fear of espionage (sorry, I meant to say reverse engineering).
And on a tangential note re trade routes, Trump, if he’s serious about bringing South American companies to heel, might like to do something about the Darien Gap. We still can’t drive between the two American continents.
…the United States should devise a more effective mechanism for constraining Houthi aggression. … Aggression? Would that be aggression in the spirit of a certain “unprovoked attack on Ukraine?” The Houthi have made quite clear the reason for their “aggression.” It would stop, again, if Israel were not starving Gaza, if Israel were not bombing Gaza. What does the United States have to do with “constraint?” The US supplies the ammunition. The Don’s “beautiful” plans for Gaza require the removal of its population by whatever means is expedient. The US has been complicit in the genocide of the people of Gaza from the get go. Is the need for a “more effective mechanism” and admission that indiscriminately bombing Yemen is not doing the job? This IMEC fever dream is nonsense. The economics do not work. Who builds the ports and railroads? Who protects the railroads from sabotage? It reminds me of the scheme in the canal building days before railroads ended the fringe efforts. Pennsylvania had, or planned(?), a canal that ended at the foot of a mountain, or was it mountains, whereupon that canal boat was loaded on some contraption on rails and hauled over the mountain to be re-floated on the other side
Not just Pennsylvania.
The Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal (sections of which can still be seen in DC, around Harper’s Ferry, and along the upper Potomac) was the brainchild of a massive real estate/commerce scheme initially headed by George Washington, as part of an effort to dominate Mid-Atlantic shipping by establishing a direct corridor between the Ohio Valley and northern Virginia, with a Chesapeake terminus near DC. Like IMEC, that scheme involved two complicated transfers and a portage across the Cumberland Gap, between the Potomac and Ohio watersheds. It was the last great canal project in the United States.
As it happened, Baltimore aristocracy had its own plans for Maryland domination of Eastern Seaboard commerce. Baltimore already had a major established seaport, but is farther up Chesapeake Bay than DC. A Virginia lock on access to the Ohio Valley would have rendered Baltimore an economic backwater.
Baltimore’s initial response was to attempt to connect to the C&O canal, upstream of DC. Unfortunately, the canal technology of the early 19th century was not up to the task of crossing the multiple ridges between Baltimore and the Potomac basin. Instead, Baltimore was forced to turn to a revolutionary new technology from Europe – the railroad – to link Baltimore to the Potomac basin and Cumberland Gap. The Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) railroad was the first great railroad project in the United States.
The B&O railroad and C&O canal both began construction on the same day – July 4th, 1828. The first shovelful of dirt on the C&O canal was turned by John Quincy Adams, President of the United States. The first shovelful of dirt on the B&O railroad was turned by Charles Carroll of Maryland, a partner in Baltimore’s bid for regional economic dominance and the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence.
“Countries involved are India, Saudi Arabia, the EU, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Italy, and the US “.
Quite telling that the scheme involves Cyprus, Greece, EU & non-EU Balkan countries, but they don’t warrant independent mention. Non players.
Thanks very much for this. The whole scheme does indeed sound like something thought up by the Israelis on the theme “Israel, what is it good for?” Clearly they see themselves as the population management experts with their bombs and drones. All those unruly countries occupying the path between low wage India and America’s Walmarts and Europe’s garden will have to be kept under control. One might almost posit that this is why Balfour and company put Israel there in the first place. Let the Great Game continue.
But is India much less the IDF up to the task? I can only think of a couple of products I own that come from India versus dozens from China. The tech heavy Billionaire class see themselves as square peg/round hole experts but more of their schemes fail than succeed and icons like Google or Amazon may simply be on the slow path to failure. But at least they did give us computers and an internet for talking about their crazy schemes.
Other than allowing the US to interfere with the free flow of goods by serving as a “protection service,” how exactly does this serve anybody’s interests? Specifically, how does it serve US interests to spend outrageous amounts of money on these protection services with no monetary compensation in return? Over time, why couldn’t those being protected organize themselves to protect their own trade routes, particularly countries like India?
It all sounds cockamamy to me. At least organized crime had the good sense to extract its due from those being “protected.”
With ‘allies’ like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and India, who needs enemies?
Of course, that’s even more true of the good ‘ol USA these days…
Also, what happened to War On The Rocks??? I useta be a very cool, very Indie site, but now it seems to have been Assimilated by the Borg.
Read here on NC back in 2018 in an article about a flood “ According to climate scientist, Chip Fletcher, our communities are scaled and built for a climate that no longer exists.”
Which is my sense of all this.
And which reinforces my appreciation for this site and those who contribute here. Thanks.
India under Nehru and even up before Modi would never had agreed to this IMEC scheme! India has had historical friendly ties with Iran and even recently invested in developing the port there. This is one such example. Iranian oil is probably cheaper for India. Further, countries like India need to develop friendly relationships with their neighbors first and also trade. India also has to stay true to Nehru’s non-alligned movement that was started after the British left. The moves made by US in Azerbijan and Armenia are also critical for IMEC and again India and Armenia have historical ties( India had taken in refugees from the Turkish Armenian war and has recently supplied Armenia with advanced weapons and many cities in India have Armenian neighborhoods that at one point had refugees). Neocons do not understand how Asia works and this plan seems to be too simple. Modi harbors anti muslim Hindu Nationalist views and see Israel favorably but one should see if this is good for India in the long term with it’s 200M muslim population.