IMEC in the Shadow of War: Why the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor Still Matters

Emiliano Alessandri, Nicolò Russo Perez / March 2026

The eruption of conflict across the Gulf—sparked by escalating confrontation between the United States, Israel, and Iran—has cast a long shadow over the ambitious vision of the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). At first glance, the project may appear increasingly unrealistic. Infrastructure corridors require predictability, capital flows, and political stability—conditions that war disrupts almost by definition. Yet dismissing IMEC as a geopolitical mirage would be premature. The strategic, economic, and technological logic underpinning the initiative has not disappeared. If anything, the instability suddenly engulfing West Asia reinforces the need for precisely the kind of diversified connectivity architecture that IMEC strives to foster [...].

Keywords: IMEC, India, Gulf, Middle-East, Europe, War