The realignment of geostrategic interests in the MENA region has become more than clear at least since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Turkish support for Azerbaijan in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh also has a geostrategically relevant aspect: With control in the southern Caucasus, Erdogan could, in the medium term, establish an alternative trade route from the Asian region via the Caspian Sea to Turkey and Europe, bypassing Russian territory.
There is also the upcoming trading giant from India, interested in lucrative trade routes for its exports. New facts have now been created here, with the help of the US, the EU and states in the Gulf region. The plans center around a network of sea and rail routes linking the Indian subcontinent to Europe via the Middle East.
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) will consist of railway lines and seaports connecting India and Europe via the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel. In addition to reducing transit times for goods, the IMEC project will include infrastructure for the production and transport of green hydrogen, as well as a submarine cable to improve telecommunications and data transfer. It is not just an infrastructure project but a US strategy aimed at lowering the temperature in the Middle East, which has historically been a net exporter of turmoil and uncertainty. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the project as a “beacon of cooperation, innovation and shared progress”, and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of a “green and digital bridge across continents and civilizations”. Specifically, the corridor will consist of improved rail networks, shipping connections and submarine cables between the three regions.
Such a project, if implemented, could have various political and economic implications: India suddenly seems determined to link its growth with the West and open up – although this would not yet solve a once-in-a-century problem in dealing with the subcontinent , but approached remarkably openly. The route across the Arabian Peninsula would also bring Israel and Saudi Arabia together, a goal that the US have been stubbornly pursuing for months. A vacuum in the Arab world that Washington created itself would be filled – a gap that China has long identified and is using for its interests. By the way, the EU would also appear as a strategic actor beyond its own continent for the first time. Their economic firepower is definitely not used enough to intervene in the order of other regions of the world.
While Beijing is assessing the mixed results of its own Belt and Road Initiative after ten years, India and its global rival US are now seizing the opportunity to create a counter-model. Whether this will have a future is, of course, still completely unclear. But the geopolitical dimension of this new linkage initiative is extremely significant. China was already sure of its foreign policy advantages after the successful expansion of the Brics community of states that it dominated – China is unlikely to be particularly happy with this new initiative: those once Western-oriented states that have apparently drawn closer to China and Russia in recent years are by no means lost for the West. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have been working intensively for some time on deeper relations with the People’s Republic. They receive investments from China, but also gifts that the US expressly refuse – such as cooperation in setting up their own nuclear programs that can be used for both civil and military purposes.
However, this initiative with Europeans and Americans shows that the Gulf Arabs have not simply switched sides, and also that India does not want to be part of a Chinese-dominated counterpart to the West. Rather, as middle powers in a multipolar world, these states buy contacts and connections where they appear to be particularly favorable. And the West still has a lot to offer.
Saudi Arabia wants to donate $20 billion for the corridor, but otherwise the sums involved are still completely unclear. The details are only expected to be negotiated over the next months. But if the West and its allies really want to compete with the so-called New Silk Road, then they need a lot of money. Over the next five years, the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) investment program is expected to have a volume of $600 billion, more than half of which will be raised from private investors. It is therefore still completely unclear whether this sum will actually come together. After all: If you add the amount of the Global Gateway Initiative, the EU’s Silk Road alternative with a planned volume of 300 billion euros, then the two together result in a total of 900 billion euros – and therefore roughly as much as China with the new one Silk Road has invested in the past ten years.
The Middle East remains a central battlefield in the conflict between the poles of power. Since Islamist terrorism has been significantly weakened, the Arab dictatorships have been stabilized and the importance of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas has continued to decline, some observers see the importance of the expanded Middle East declining. US President Barack Obama even announced the so-called Pivot to Asia. The fact that the superpower wanted to concentrate more on the east of the giant continent in the future was due to China’s growing power and at the same time implied a partial withdrawal from the Middle East. But now things are different. Although Joe Biden is sticking to this strategy in principle, observers in Washington are beginning to ask what this actually means in concrete terms. So far, neither American military activities nor investments in East Asia have increased significantly. The fight for world domination is currently not taking place on China’s doorstep, but in the region that essentially forms the hinge between Asia, Europe and Africa – in the Middle East.
This can be seen not only in the new corridor. Also in the expansion of the Brics group of states, which China wants to develop into a global alliance against the West, Middle Eastern states in particular were admitted – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Emirates. And with its role as a mediator in the rapprochement between the Saudis and Iranians, China has embarked on what is probably the most important but also riskiest maneuver in the world in recent years.
Fossil fuels will continue to be the cheaper alternative to green energies for decades to come, and the Middle East is also important in the latter, for example with its investment in green hydrogen. The geographical location of the region will not disappear either. All trade routes between Europe and East Asia pass through them, two regions that together account for almost three-quarters of global trade volume. In addition, the Gulf Arabs in particular have invested their billions in oil wisely. They are significant powers in the world’s financial markets. And they are politically more agile than other countries in the world.
Does the US wish that the new corridor can also bring Israel and Saudi Arabia closer together? The declarations of intent are still too vague for that! But what is clear is that Israelis and Arabs are similarly adept at securing investments and political guarantees from various powers.
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