EP.1 – The Global High Tea Series | Changing Geopolitics of West Asia and its Implications for India

Introduction

The rapidly evolving conflict in West Asia has significantly altered the region’s geopolitical landscape, triggering a cascading crisis across security, economic, energy, and diplomatic domains. For India, West Asia is not a peripheral concern but a region of critical strategic importance, with deep-rooted economic, political, and people-to-people linkages.

Nearly nine million Indians reside and work across Gulf countries, contributing an estimated $50 billion in annual remittances. Any prolonged instability in the region threatens these flows, raises the risk of large-scale return migration, and places pressure on domestic employment and social systems. At the same time, India’s energy security remains deeply tied to the region, with close to 90% of its crude oil imports—much of it transiting through the Strait of Hormuz—making it highly vulnerable to supply disruptions and price volatility.

Beyond immediate economic concerns, the ongoing conflict reflects a broader transformation in the nature of global power and warfare. The shift towards hybrid, multi-domain conflict—encompassing cyber operations, proxy engagements, and economic coercion—has drawn in major global and regional actors, exposing structural limitations within multilateral institutions such as BRICS and intensifying uncertainty in the international system.

Against this backdrop, India faces the complex challenge of balancing its strategic relationships across competing regional actors, safeguarding its diaspora, ensuring energy security, and maintaining strategic autonomy. This webinar aims to unpack these intersecting developments, examining the implications of West Asia’s changing geopolitics for India’s foreign policy, economic resilience, and long-term strategic positioning.

Key Discussion Questions

The discussion will focus on the following questions:

1. What are the implications of the Iran–Israel conflict for India’s diaspora and remittance economy, and how should policy respond to emerging risks?
2. Is India’s current energy security model sustainable, given its heavy dependence on Gulf oil imports and vulnerable supply routes?
3. How is the ongoing conflict transforming the nature of warfare, and what does this mean for regional and global security dynamics?
4. What does the crisis reveal about the limitations of BRICS and other multilateral institutions in managing geopolitical conflicts?
5. What are the broader economic consequences of the conflict for the GCC, India, and the global economy, and how should policymakers respond?

Key Takeaways

The Palestine Question Remains the Unresolved Core of West Asian Instability:

Every cycle of conflict in the region, from past skirmishes to the current war,  traces back to the unaddressed Palestinian issue. Without a just and lasting resolution, the region will continue to oscillate between fragile truces and explosive violence.

Israel’s Regional Dominance Is Real but Hollow Without American Backing:

Israel has emerged as the de facto military hegemon of West Asia, but this position is entirely contingent on unconditional US political, military, and intelligence support. Israel has not fought an equal national force in over 50 years, making its true independent capability untested and overstated.

The Strait of Hormuz Has Become a Global Economic Chokepoint in a Dangerous Stalemate:

With both the US blockading Iranian ports and Iran retaliating by halting other shipping, the Hormuz closure is disrupting global energy flows and threatening food security in Gulf countries that import up to 90% of their food. The face-saving deadlock between Washington and Tehran is prolonging this economic damage with no clear resolution in sight.

America Has Permanently Lost Credibility as the Gulf’s Security Guarantor:

Across Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran, the US has consistently acted in pursuit of its own interests rather than regional stability. GCC states, despite hosting American bases and troops, found themselves ignored, exposed to Iranian retaliation, and unable to prevent a war fought from their own soil. A fundamental rethinking of Gulf security architecture is now unavoidable

A New Regional Security Framework Must Be Asian-Led, Not Western-Designed:

The only viable post-conflict security arrangement is one that brings together Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and the six GCC states under a framework facilitated by credible stakeholder nations, India, China, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea. These countries have direct economic stakes in regional stability and no imperial agenda in the region.

Speaker

Amb. Talmiz Ahmad

Former Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE; Former Additional Secretary for International Cooperation, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas; Former Director General, Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA).

Moderator

Gazi Hassan

Research Scholar – International Relations, CPPR

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