On the eastern edge of the Arabian Sea, a pair of ports located just 160 kilometers apart (roughly 100 miles) lies at the heart of a multifaceted struggle for power among regional heavyweights in South Asia. For India, the Chinese-funded Gwadar port in Pakistan has heightened its concerns of encirclement under China’s Belt and Road Initiative. This has fueled New Delhi to secure its own infrastructure projects across the Indian Ocean, including Iran’s Chabahar port. Meanwhile, for Pakistan, India's growing presence in nearby Iran feeds into its own concerns of encirclement.
Iran -- which counts India, Pakistan and China as partners -- recently floated the idea of linking the two ports. However, such a juncture is highly unlikely because of these vying global strategies. The grandiose visions of spurring greater economic prosperity will instead continue to propel the two ports' development for years to come, even as both projects face key...
