Evidence of balkanization of the MENA and Indo-Pacific area by means of jihad?
The term “balkanization” usually refers to the process of dismemberment of a State or area into smaller political entities, often resulting in instability and conflict. In simple words, it is like when a country is divided into several States or regions, often resulting in the division of a people.
What I am proposing here is a more expansive use of the term with reference to dynamics that can lead to a fragmentation of an entire area of geopolitical interest in order to exploit relational tensions between the different parties to make it easier to contrast them.
Specifically, here we will look at a strategic element in my view that is innovative for the balkanization of the Indo-Pacific area, which aims not only at the political and social fragmentation of the region as such, but also at stimulating balkanization within the national borders of certain countries and among them of the PRC to promote instability wherever and as far as possible.
And indeed, specifically, balkanization in the Indo-Pacific can be caused by several factors such as:
- competition between major powers: the growing rivalry between China and the United States, for example, can lead to increased tension and a fragmentation of the area into more or less stable blocs of alliances.
- Internal tensions: Indo-Pacific countries often have different policies, interests, and cultures, which can lead to conflicts and disagreements between them.
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- territorial issues and disputes: the dispute over the South China Sea, the Senkaku Islands, and other territorial issues can contribute to greater instability in the area.
- conomic interests: the different economies of the Indo-Pacific are interconnected but also compete with each other, which can create trade tensions and rivalries.
These are all factors that can lead to the creation of alliances, regional blocs, and defensive alliances that can increase tensions and thus to a process of political and social fragmentation suitable for triggering proxy wars, but having in mind that the PRC’s vulnerability is not just a propaganda opinion devoid of any foundation.
An interesting reflection having for Donald Trump’s ventilated possible agreement with Iran, a reflection proposed a few days ago by Gilles Touboul in his interesting article titled “Un accord Trump-Iran : le dilemme existentiel d’Israël” lends itself well to what I consider to be not only an interesting, but, as we shall see, inescapable and, above all, unmissable reflection in light of current developments.
Touboul writes in the opening of his article, “What if Donald Trump, back in the White House, signs a deal with Iran? The hypothesis is not absurd. The man who withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) in 2018 has always said he wants a “better deal” – not necessarily a war. The idea of a bilateral agreement between Washington and Tehran, calibrated to the immediate interests of both sides, is taking shape in strategic circles. But for Israel, this scenario would not be a diplomatic victory: it would be a strategic dilemma of unprecedented magnitude, mixing loyalty and defense of its national security.”
And again, “The Trumpian worldview is based on a simple principle: bilateral, transactional, power-based negotiation. Trump believes that Iran, weakened by sanctions and worried about a direct conflict with Israel, is ready for a ‘tactical normalization’ that would allow it to emerge from isolation and offer the United States diplomatic success without war. In reality, this would be a disengagement, a return to business in the fashion of realpolitik, where stability comes before values and where the Israeli threat is secondary.”
A concept, the latter, which in the case of Israel must be read with a different eye if one only considers that out of the 80 times the United States has exercised its veto right in the UN Security Council, as many as 50 have been for it to support the Jewish state.
Concurrently with the dissemination of this news, which in itself has raised not a few perplexities in Israeli political circles, of undoubted relevance has also come to us another piece of news that I highlighted on on June 2, 2025 in one of my last articles titled “Mediterranean: a possible second South front – and if there was ever a need for a confirmation,” where I considered to give due prominence to the fact that the recent deployment of Russian missiles in Libya, apparently in a base located in an area controlled by Gen. Haftar would appear to have been pre-approved in some way by the United States.
Specifically, the singular news was reported by the Nova Agency, which on May 29, 2025 reported verbatim that as far as it was known from unspecified well-informed sources “part of the plan would also be endorsed by the United States, with the mediation of Turkey” and that at the basis of the understanding there would had been a kind of agreement concerning the transfer of one million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya: a project of which the U.S. broadcaster NBC had already reported a few days before, except that it was then officially denied by both Tripoli, and the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.
The first and most cogent reason for perplexity as the news first spread concerned the fact that the conclusion of any Trump-Iran agreement would undermine the Abrahamic Accords by causing the UAE, Bahrain and especially Saudi Arabia, countries that prior to the outbreak of the war in Gaza had begun to move in the direction favorable to normalization of relations with Israel, to be in no small measure induced to reconsider their position: not to mention that such a change in Washington’s course would make Israel’s position very unstable, as well as motivate the Sunni camp to take a neutral stance if not even to seek some agreement with Tehran.
Ultimately, several observers have intended to read into this new White House approach to the Iran dispute something that could result in a real isolation of Israel as well as its weakening in the entire regional framework.
In this sense, this is in brief the reading taken here, the backlash, given the unpredictability of the U.S. ally, could motivate Israel to rethink its strategic doctrine by aiming at strengthening its military autonomy to the point of more openly assuming its status as an undeclared nuclear power: a radical change that in a world where alliances are becoming temporary and deterrence remains the only certainty, could prove to be the winning choice of the moment.
And in this sense, it is safe to assume that what is feared in Israel more than anything else is coming, or may somehow come, is not an agreement between Washington and Tehran, but a paradigm shift: one whereby the Iranian threat is no longer perceived as existential by the United States because, as Touboul wrote, “the day Trump decides that a ‘contained’ Iran is better than an endless conflict, Israel will have to make a terrible choice: trust America or take its fate into its own hands”.
A “taking one’s fate into one’s own hands” that would seem to have taken shape and substance with what happened on June 13, 2025, namely, the massive Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
An attack described as “preemptive” in that Israeli security officials allegedly felt that Iran’s nuclear program had reached the point of posing an existential threat.
Apparently the United States would not appear to have been involved in this , although this version of events has puzzled more than a few observers to the point that there have been those who have speculated that the U.S. proposal for a nuclear negotiation with Iran could be read as a kind of assist to Tel Aviv in that it would have allowed Tehran’s guard to be lowered with the consequent opening of the window necessary to strike the blow without interfering with the White House’s overall strategy. That strategy that may now find itself able to be articulated in steps that could be moved by benefiting from a more, of necessity, soft approach by the Iranian establishment.
On closer inspection, however, the issue is in some ways much more complex and articulated, and it is not even certain that Israel was kept in the dark about Trump’s decisions. Why this is so can be seen from the fact that, as The New York Times reported in an editorial that appeared last June 3, Trump’s proposal was reportedly concerted with other interlocutors, among whom it is beyond safe to assume include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel itself, that to Iran’s go-ahead for everything related to low-level Uranium enrichment procedures, i.e., those aimed at producing fuel for the operation of new nuclear power plants, and giammai those carried out by Tehran for war purposes.
To sum up, from what has been made known quite confidentially by Iranian and European officials, the Plan in question would, yes, facilitate the construction of Iran’s nuclear reactors, but only through enrichment facilities operated by a consortium of regional countries that all indications are that they would be well suited to get involved on the condition that Iran, once it begins to benefit from these productions, stops domestic activity altogether: so much in order to avoid military confrontation, but not only.
And in fact, the plan of Trump and his Middle Eastern allies, should it be accepted by the Iranian authorities, albeit obtorto collo (obtorto collo as the option of a direct Israeli attack on Tehran’s nuclear sites would still remain open otherwise), would allow, among other things:
- to the United States to insert itself in a diplomatic and strategic context hitherto dangerously the exclusive and unchallenged prerogative of Moscow, as well as of that Beijing which has currently imprinted a new drift in a military sense on its own affiliation with Tehran. An affiliation that has taken on the characteristics of a tripartite warning from Beijing, Moscow and Tehran, precisely, to the West manifested as much with the start given on March 15, 2025, of joint military exercises in the Gulf of Oman, (i.e., with that Security Belt-2025 that took place in March of this year and which, in addition to being a show of force, also manifested the birth of a real long-term political project) as much as with the trade agreement concluded by Tehran with the PRC for the purchase of materials essential to the construction of 800 ballistic missiles .
Interestingly, this last piece of news, obviously denied by Beijing, allowed the PRC’s involvement in the military campaign of the Yemeni Houthis, who were allegedly identified as recipients of part of this supply through the Islamic Republic, to be revealed.
Incidentally, the Security Belt-2025, with the deployment of the three navies in front of the Iranian port of Chabahar, in an area crucial to global security, facing the geopolitical bottleneck of the Strait of Hormuz, from which 30% of crude oil transits, 70% of which is bound for China, also bore witness to China’s planned expansion into the Indian Ocean (on the Iran-Pakistan border and where the China-Pakistan economic corridor ends), i.e., into an area strategic for the containment of India, i.e., China’s primary global competitor and that Pakistan which not surprisingly benefited from Ankara’s support in the recent confrontation with New Dehli.
Pakistan’s is a geopolitical reality made rather complex by the strange supposed received from the United States that somehow end up, by this route, indirectly supporting that Islamic terrorism that Islamabad in fact in various capacities promotes and/or everything suggests it may promote according to pure third party geopolitical needs against India and, in my opinion should there be a possibility, against China itself, even though because of the capestro economic dependence on Beijing he finds himself constrained from taking a position in favor of the Uighur co-religionists, declaring himself officially satisfied with the reassurances of convenience received from the PRC leadership. Hence also the ambiguous stance toward the new Syrian leadership with which the Pakistani Foreign Ministry declared in 2024 that it had no direct contacts (which did not exclude indirect ones).
As we all know U.S. maintains a complex relationship with both India and Pakistan, engaging in strategic partnerships and cooperation on various issues while also having areas of disagreement. While the U.S. has been publicly supportive of India’s counterterrorism efforts and right to defend itself, it also continues to provide military assistance to Pakistan, including Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA) statu.
Now if the strange intercurrent relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan, evidenced by various press organs and statements as well as facts , allows us to read Pakistan’s enmity toward India as certainly functional in creating that instability in India which could, by reiterating and amplifying the confrontation, see the latter forced to draw aside in the Indo-Pacific region by giving way to U.S. enterprise , it is equally true that India and Pakistan being two nuclear powers means that this confrontation could prove more useful if Pakistan promotes a violent wave of Islamic terrorism in India by turning the confrontation into an atypical war waged by Islamabad on New Delhi, there is a further aspect that argues in favor of the particular, if strange, relationship of the Western great power to Islamabad.
One aspect that legitimately requires us to consider the U.S. support for Islamabad and the terrorism it promises to promote, as something broader if we consider that, taking a look at the map Pakistan could prove to be a threat to China as well if its terrorism extends to this country by virtue of its affiliation with those Uyghurs who are as Sunni as 80-90% of Pakistanis.
And in fact, to the best of our knowledge, Islam is the state religion in Pakistan, with about 95-98% of Pakistani citizens being Muslim; these are broadly divided into two sects, Sunni and Shiite. Shiism is practiced by about 5-20%, while the rest mostly practice Sunni Islam. In this sense it is worth considering that not only do most Uyghurs embrace Sunnism, but also that in recent years more and more Uyghurs are adhering to the Salafist view of Islam, demonstrating that favor for pan-Islamist and independenceist ideals vis-à-vis the People’s Republic of China that cannot displease Pakistan and that earned al-Joulani the okay from Trump for the inclusion of 3,500 foreign fighters in the newly formed Damascus Army. An ok in this sense definitely more understandable.
Complementing the complex picture, for the benefit of a clearer view of the geopolitical situation of the bridging region between Europe and MENA to the West and Asia to the East, is the emphasis on China’s special relationship with that Pakistan which Beijing has often referred to as an “all-weather friend” because of the common interests that for Pakistan are defined as “security” and for Beijing derive from the need to exert total control over the region for a whole series of reasons listed below, and the consideration of which will enable us to understand why it is legitimate to read the U.S.-promoted balkanization of MENA as anticipating the balkanization of the Indo-Pacific region .
Specifically, the key operational areas of Beijing’s particular relationship with Islamabad are that of ‘security against potential threats,’ the geopolitical one stemming from the strategic location of a Pakistan whose ports are critical to the pursuit of China’s broader strategic goals, including the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): this is not to mention that crucial China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), mentioned above, i.e., the massive infrastructure project that is in fact a major driver of economic growth and investment in Pakistan, as well as for being China’s natural link to the Indian Ocean.
Hence the complex web of trade agreements that make China Pakistan’s largest trading partner and a significant source of investment that contributes to the country’s economic development supported by a whole series of financial welfare measures that while on the one hand have enabled Pakistan to overcome a whole range of economic challenges, on the other hand have made it wholly dependent on the PRC (debt trap docet).
The issue of the Chinese debt trap is beyond controversial, although in the light of the facts Pakistan, like the rest of Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Myanmar, Mongolia, Laos, and Djibouti, is just one of the countries targeted by Beijing’s policy consisting, as is well known, of the arrangement of all those financial support actions that ultimately result in the debt contractor’s obligation to hand over public infrastructure to the Chinese government for use over decades if the instalments on the loans given are not met. Something that for Pakistan has already translated into the pressing need for debt renegotiation, as pointed out by Jabran Kundi about ten months ago in his significant article not coincidentally titled “Pakistan is firmly in China’s debt trap as minister calls for energy debt renegotiation”: because in some cases the only thing that matters are facts and not opinions, whether detractive or apologetic.
In such a context, it is easy to understand why the PRC has provided Pakistan with advanced military technology and equipment, strengthening its defense capabilities, as well as why it has always supported Pakistan’s position in international forums, often criticizing India’s actions.
- to bring back into the field alongside the West those Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who in no small measure, it comes to be said, have now resumed their fear of a nuclear power Iran, albeit a regional one, conveniently included in the ambit of those BRICS acted upon by the Moscow-Beijing duo whose anti-Westernism they for a while espoused too naively when, in order, they willingly acceded to Moscow’s request to cut oil production during the first phase of the introduction of sanctions applied to the Russian Federation in order to support the sale of Russian crude (Saudi Arabia), as well as to promote the regulation in local currency and not in USD of oil trade within the BRICS (United Arab Emirates).
Two countries that in the light of current events seem to have retraced their steps by showing themselves well disposed not to get further involved in the Sino-Russian geopolitical trap of those BRICS all too much hailed by very unwise (or because they are on Beijing’s payroll?) accredited Western geopolitical experts, as well as by the eddies of that well-organized propaganda campaign, officially pro-Palestinian cause, which has very little to do with the defense of the Gazians’ international humanitarian law, and much to do with the hegemonic aims, primarily of the Kremlin, that well emerge from what is accounted for by two analytical articles recently published by ofcs report entitled “Opening a New Southern Front? New possible war scenarios.” and “Mediterranean: a possible second south front” .
- to promote a renewed beyond-strategic affiliation of the West to that India which sees, as mentioned, the full weight of the threat in Proxy, via Tehran, posed, as mentioned earlier, by China and the Russian Federation, aggravating every day: the latter, perhaps, mindful of the rejection of the Kremlin-sponsored Ankara’s application for admission to the BRICS because of India’s own far-sighted vote against it.
Be that as it may, upon closer inspection, the most important knot still to be unraveled on the table concerns whether and when the Iranian leadership will accept a final agreement characterized by the fact that when fully operational, no more nuclear fuel should be produced on Iranian soil. This is a crucial knot with reference to which it is necessary, and not only appropriate, to properly assess the actual weight to be given to certain statements such as, for example, the one made by Ayatollah Khamenei on May 20, 2025, in Tehran, in which the same, after calling on the Americans to stop talking “nonsense,” saw fit to emphasize that “no one waits for permission from anyone. The Islamic Republic has its own policies, its own methods and pursues its own agenda”.
He was echoed by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who on the same day deemed it his primary duty to emphasize that Iran will continue to enrich uranium “with or without” an agreement with the United States although-and this is in passage of greater interest-he then added that “if the United States is interested in ensuring that Iran does not have nuclear weapons, an agreement is within reach and we are ready for a serious conversation to reach a solution that will guarantee this outcome forever“.
An assertion, the latter, most likely dictated by the awareness that, on balance, at least in the medium-short term, it might be more convenient for Tehran to safeguard its nuclear production potential than to risk having it wiped out by an Israeli attack that is likely to be devastating because of the current degradation of Tehran’s defense systems and the weakness of its regional allies, namely Hezbollah and a Hamas that is clearly in crisis.
Not to mention the descent into the field of that al-Joulani, which in no small part promises to alter, not to say upset, the entire compartment of the already precarious Middle Eastern (and other) balances in a direction certainly not favorable to a Shiite Tehran that at this point it is safe to assume the United States does not want to annihilate in order to aim to surreptitiously play the Shiite-Sunni opposition card: something that seemingly everything suggests they have already fielded even those Chinese about whom little is said and, more importantly, much less is known, though much is talked about.
A China that has so far proved extremely adept at exploiting existing regional disputes and disputes in areas of interest, that aims above all to make its presence felt by moving as a mediator, that-at least on the surface-does not promote Proxy Wars by directly supporting this or that local actor, but that makes sure to stimulate them, perhaps by promoting the signing of contracts for military supplies to countries that it knows will use, motu proprio, a part of them to arm those responsible for those of its strategic interest: the case of the Tehran-backed Yemeni Houthis is glaring.
A China that does not directly promote coups to install governments favorable to it, but propagandistically stimulates, in countries and areas of interest, those who will then, in due course, act in accordance with its wishes convinced that they are doing so themselves; a China that has well understood how to use the rules of the free market, high finance and international law to create favorable conditions for taking control of a country without occupying it militarily, but rather by disbursing money to that local leadership of the moment which will then, in due course, be forced to come to agreements of real cession of sovereignty to the PRC when it realizes that it cannot honor its financial commitments.
A China that is in fact aiming to increase its military presence abroad, even though it then officially has only one military base outside its publicly recognized borders: the Djibouti base, and this despite the fact that it has declared-maybe at the moment just to see what effect this might have-that it wants access to other locations for potential bases. Locations include Cuba, Cambodia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, but without having officially established any with the exception, in addition to Djibouti, of a naval base in Cambodia in Preah Sihanouk province (officially presented as the result of a modernization of a Cambodian base), near the Gulf of Thailand, and a presence in Tajikistan where it operates a paramilitary outpost .
Interestingly, as to the latter reference, the Chinese paramilitary outpost can be seen as a useful ploy in every way similar to that adopted in its time by the United States through the use of so-called “Military Advisers” (typical the case in the Vietnam War): a ploy to disguise the actual deployment of regular troops.
Specifically, in fact, according to what was known in November 2021 , at the moment the Chinese military presence in Tajikistan would not be drastically increased because the outpost would not be run by members of the Chinese military nor by the military police, but rather by the Tajik police, who at the time were already working with the Chinese People’s Armed Police – PAP (a paramilitary organization whose main role in Central Asia is to liaise with other security forces in areas such as intelligence sharing and counterterrorism) at another Tajik outpost located near the Afghan border and the 76-kilometer land border separating China from Afghanistan.
Officially, the Chinese presence would thus have been justified by the need to stem the problems arising from the porosity of the Tajik-Pakistan border , which facilitated the trafficking of drugs, weapons and people from Afghanistan to China: a motivation similar to that which in its time led the United States to put in place all that was necessary to stem the infiltration of the Vietcong from Cambodia into South Vietnam (history, as usual, mutatis mutandis, repeats itself) and which for that very reason appeared exceedingly laughable to the most careful observers.
What in fact did not add up was why it had become important at that very moment since if it is true that the exit of the United States from Afghanistan had created conditions of instability by forcing China to take on the burden of security in the region itself, it was equally true that China, in fact, had always cared very little about taking charge of something that having the West as its target in the first place could continue to be regarded with the benevolent eye of those who operate according to the principle that sees as friend the enemy of one’s enemy.
This would be proved by Beijing’s ready helpfulness to the new Taliban leadership in Afghanistan by abandoning decades of domestic narratives about violent Taliban terrorism as well as by immediately presenting the new leadership as a legitimate political actor to its domestic audience, despite the fact that it had soon had to reckon with internal divisions among the various Taliban factions, some of which were close to the Uighur cause, moreover mindful, by sum, of certain U.S. affiliations in days gone by with those same militias in an anti-U.S.S.R. capacity, which nowadays matches its own that has emerged in various ways with reference to the recent Houthi activity mentioned above.
Now, in light of the aforementioned facts, as well as paying attention to the increasingly blatant Chinese strategy in the Middle East and the tactics adopted of only apparent Beijing equidistance from the conflicting parties, it seems not only legitimate but incumbent not only to assume a surreptitious Chinese involvement in all that led to the upheaval of the old MENA geopolitical balances unleashed by the Arab Spring, but to regard those paramilitary outposts as a precautionary measure to shelter oneself from similar strategies put in place by the West having well in mind the principle that what goes around comes around. A l’aspetti that has become reality somewhat with the recent OK given by Trump to the inclusion in the ranks of the new Syrian army of 3,500 mainly Uighur foreign fighters representing a direct atypical threat posed by the US to China.
A China that is a master of atypical warfare (consider the whole issue revolving around drug trafficking and which we now find engaged in rearming, as seen, Tehran, and finally a China that is a leader in the art of provocation aimed at dividing its enemy’s forces in the expectation of creating the conditions for moving militarily without the adversary having any real reason to intervene: emblematic is the case represented by the handling of the dispute concerning Taiwan.
An area, the latter, that by dint of well-calibrated provocations has caused the West to take it upon itself to deploy its naval forces at great cost, ending up appearing to be the only real aggressor in the field: a modus operandi typical of those who throw the stone and then promptly hide their hand that, apparently, President Trump seems to have understood and begun to counter, albeit amidst a thousand difficulties, by shaking hands with Sunni al-Joulani.
The most interesting aspect, in my opinion, that emerges from this brief examination, which is certainly a harbinger of answers, but also -and perhaps above all- of questions that demand quick and timely answers, is the emergence of an intimate connection between otherwise seemingly inexplicable, if not downright puzzling, events, which if looked at with eyes less tainted by ideological prejudices end up bringing out the complexity of a situation, the current geopolitical one, in rapid evolution and by no means simple to decipher: beginning with that surprise negotiation with Iran blessed by Trump and which cannot be trivialized by reading it as the American president’s attempt to achieve diplomatic success in the face of the setback in the Russian-Ukrainian peace talks.
Although at first glance this might seem like nonsense, it is important to consider that currently the main threat on the table is that posed by al-Joulani’s, as it were, strategic “joint venture” with Ankara and by indirection with Moscow as well.
A threat that a Washington-Tehran agreement that would return Iran to a somewhat active role of its own could now be a good way not only to prevent the rapid establishment of a Sunni political jihad led by Damascus, and endorsed by both Moscow and Ankara for various regional and global strategic reasons, but also a way to force both Erdogan and Putin to rethink their strategy: and blessed be the time if this were to lead to even major frictions within the Islamic area of MENA.
Tehran, in fact, just to say, is, for example, a primary supplier of drones to Moscow (which, by the way, is heavily indebted to the ayatollahs’ government), and a Washington opening to Iran could interfere in no small positive way for the West in the current tough Moscow-Washington confrontation.
From a strategic point of view, then, it should be noted that the EU’s opening to Damascus, in progress, and Washington’s opening to Tehran, in fieri, would be tantamount to putting a side-foot in the southern gateway to that NATO which from the divide-and-conquer of the Islamic world could only gain an undoubted advantage for a timely rearrangement of ideas.
For Israel the whole affair would in some ways be less problematic than it might seem, and at first glance it has been pointed out, in that if the Islamic world divides internally the pressure on Tel Aviv diminishes: an opportunity that Israel seems to have seized in light of what Haretz recently made known in an article that literally headlined, “Armed Gaza Militia Rivaling Hamas Hands Out Aid in Israeli- controlled Zone”.
Certainly by proceeding in this way, peace in the Middle East is receding: unfortunately, realpolitik follows rather different logics: peace, on balance, seems to be something that seems to be a condition desired by the peoples, but which as usual does not always reconcile with the needs of the cold international competitors
In the end, history is always a cyclical repetition of the same scenarios.
