Energy lines, trade routes, supply chains, tariffs, finance networks, railways, shipping lanes, and even space pacts – these are the new frontlines of global power. The rules of international order are being ripped up. What comes next is a raw, unregulated contest for supremacy.

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza, tensions across Taiwan, Cyprus, Greenland, and the Panama Canal – all are symptoms of this larger war over trade routes and corridors. Each represents a bid to dominate the flow of energy, goods, and capital.

West Asia, as always, is ground zero. It is no coincidence that US President Donald Trump’s first foreign visit in office was to the Persian Gulf. That 2025 tour yielded $3.2 trillion in deals and unveiled Washington’s counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) that seeks to connect India, via the Persian Gulf, to Israel, and onward to Europe.

IMEC is a construct aimed entirely at bypassing China’s BRI and reasserting US influence through West and Central Asia. But the corridor fight has exposed the fragmentation of global power.

India, China's biggest regional rival, projected to be the world’s second-largest economy by 2050, is Washington’s main partner in IMEC. Yet its open alliance with Israel and its hostile stance toward Pakistan jeopardize the entire plan. Few Muslim-majority nations are eager to align publicly with Tel Aviv. If India provokes a deeper conflict with nuclear-armed Pakistan, IMEC collapses.

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Pretty good article talking about the importance of the maritine/land trade corridors and how the US and China are planning about it