The North–South Transport Corridor and Iran's pivotal role
The International North–South Transport Corridor is an ambitious 7,200-km multimodal route from St Petersburg to Mumbai. Because every branch of it runs through Iran, the country has become the corridor's pivotal link.
The International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC) is an ambitious project to create a multimodal passenger and freight route from the seaport of St Petersburg to Mumbai, one of the largest ports on India’s west coast, with a total length of 7,200 km.
Its main advantages are that it halves the distance of carriage, cuts transit time by 40% and reduces transport costs by 30% compared with the international sea route through the Suez Canal, which is 14,500 km long.
Beyond these advantages, the North–South corridor gives Russia (and, in time, European countries) access to the large, fast-growing markets of Iran, India, South-East Asia, Africa and the Middle East; and gives India, Iran, South-East Asia and Africa access to the markets of Russia, Northern and Western Europe via the Baltic Sea, and of Central Asia via the corridor’s eastern route. Iran becomes the key country in this corridor, since all these routes will pass through it.
Given the above, and Iran’s key place in the North–South corridor, I believe Israel’s air strikes (with the indirect support of its Western allies) are aimed not only at eliminating Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes but also at preventing Iran from becoming a country with advanced technology and industry.
These strikes may also be intended to shift the regional balance and, in the longer term, to create geopolitical problems for Russia and China in the region, since Russia too is reaching for Asian and African markets via the short North–South corridor, while China is building trade routes through Iran among other countries under the global Belt and Road Initiative. I also believe that the destabilisation of Iran could harm the security of the countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia.