West Asia and South Asia: A Converging Security System in the Age of Hybrid Proxies and Transnational Radicalisation

The dramatic events of 2023–2025 have decisively dismantled this assumption. It is now increasingly evident that West Asia and South Asia function as a single, interconnected security system, shaped less by conventional state militaries and more by hybrid actors, armed proxies, militias, and ideological networks enabled by states seeking strategic depth and plausible deniability. This article argues that three structural vectors bind the two regions into a unified security complex: the proliferation of hybrid proxy armies; the transformation of the Gulf into a central security hub; and the emergence of a transnational radicalisation ecosystem that crosses borders with ease, particularly through digital platforms. A comparative examination of India and Israel further demonstrates that both states confront similar hybrid threats rooted in parallel historical trajectories and increasingly convergent operational environments.

Hybrid Proxy Warfare Across a Unified Strategic Space

Across the arc from Gaza to Kashmir, the dominant military actors are no longer regular armies but hybrid proxy forces that combine the operational sophistication of state-backed military units with the ideological flexibility of insurgent organisations. In West Asia, the Iranian proxy networks Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis have fundamentally reshaped the regional security landscape. Hamas today operates not merely as a terrorist organisation but as a fully developed hybrid army, encompassing political leadership, organised military brigades, intelligence systems, and a sophisticated psychological warfare apparatus. The 7 October attack demonstrated a strategic logic that extended well beyond Israel itself: it disrupted the accelerating Israel–Saudi normalisation process and undermined IMEC, a project central to India’s long-term geoeconomic vision and regional connectivity strategy.

Hezbollah represents the most advanced expression of the hybrid proxy model. It possesses state-level missile capabilities, territorial control, and autonomous intelligence networks while remaining deeply embedded within Iran’s regional strategy. The Houthis, meanwhile, have demonstrated how a proxy force can impose strategic costs far beyond its immediate theatre by disrupting global trade and energy flows through sustained attacks on Red Sea shipping developments with direct implications for India’s maritime security, supply chains, and economic resilience.

A parallel structure is clearly visible in South Asia. Pakistan’s long-standing support for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and more recent formations such as The Resistance Front (TRF) reflects the systematic outsourcing of military strategy to non-state actors. These organisations conduct coordinated, military-style operations while providing Islamabad with plausible deniability and strategic insulation. The 2025 Pahalgam attack, followed by India’s Operation Sindoor, revealed both Pakistan’s continued reliance on proxy warfare and India’s evolving doctrinal shift toward pre-emptive, proportionate retaliation. This pattern increasingly resembles Israel’s operational approach to hybrid threats.

Crucially linking both theatres is Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). Operating from the Afghan vacuum, ISKP functions as a connective node between West Asian and South Asian conflict ecosystems. It systematically blends Middle Eastern narratives, most notably the defence of Al-Aqsa and imagery from Gaza and Syria, with local South Asian grievances, transforming geographically distinct conflicts into a single ideological struggle. Its attacks on Chinese nationals and infrastructure at Dasu, in Kabul, and along the Tajik–Afghan border directly undermine the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), thereby shaping India’s broader strategic environment. ISKP’s capacity to recruit simultaneously from West Asian and South Asian audiences through digital ecosystems positions it as a junction at which regional radicalisation converges, reinforcing the argument that the threat is no longer localised but system-wide.

The Gulf as a Strategic Security Hub

Traditionally approached through economic and energy-centric frameworks, the Gulf has emerged as a central security hub linking West Asia and South Asia. Iran’s proxy architecture now spans Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and, increasingly,y areas adjacent to the Jordanian border. This network shapes not only the security environment of Israel and the Gulf monarchies but also India’s strategic interests. Disruptions to maritime security in the Red Sea or the Arabian Sea pose direct risks to India’s trade corridors, energy supplies, and diaspora communities. Jordan, a historically stabilising buffer state has become more vulnerable to pressure from Iranian-backed militias, and any destabilisation there would reverberate across both regions, altering the broader balance of power.

The Saudi–Pakistan Security Agreement (SMDA), signed in 2025, further illustrates this emerging interdependence. Rather than creating an entirely new security framework, the pact formalised a decades-long pattern of Pakistani troop deployments, training missions, and advisory roles within the kingdom. It also reinforced an ideological narrative framing Pakistan as a defender of Islam’s holy sites. For India, the agreement signals Pakistan’s renewed regional relevance and Saudi Arabia’s strategic hedging amid Iranian assertiveness and fluctuating U.S. engagement. It also underscores a critical shift that crises in Kashmir now possess the potential to generate immediate strategic reverberations in the Gulf, and vice versa.

Within this evolving environment, Israel and India emerge as parallel cases confronting similar hybrid threat architectures. Both face adversaries embedded within civilian infrastructure, sustained disinformation campaigns, and threats to critical maritime routes and economic corridors. Their expanding cooperation in defence technology, counter-terrorism, cyber operations, and water security thus reflects not merely political alignment but a shared structural exposure to hybrid conflict.

Radicalisation as the Connective Tissue

Radicalisation today spreads less through physical mobility and more through narratives, networks, and digital platforms. Between 2023 and 2025, a unified storyline portraying Al-Aqsa as under existential threat circulated seamlessly across Syria, Gaza, Kashmir, and Southeast Asia, becoming a powerful mobilising force across disparate societies. Events in Gaza triggered demonstrations across South Asian capitals; incidents in Kashmir were reframed as part of a global “resistance” narrative; and ISKP incorporated footage from Hamas operations into its recruitment propaganda. This circulation of narratives underscores the collapse of analytical separation between West Asia and South Asia and highlights the centrality of the cognitive domain in contemporary conflict.

India and Israel as Parallel Cases in Hybrid Conflict

A comparative examination of India’s and Israel’s counter-terrorism strategies reveals profound structural parallels that reinforce the argument for a unified regional security system. Both states confront adversaries that deliberately blur the distinction between combatants and civilians, embed military assets within public institutions, and weaponise denial strategies to delegitimise state responses. Both also face global narratives that portray democratic self-defence as aggression, complicating diplomatic manoeuvring during periods of escalation.

Operationally, India and Israel have converged toward the use of surgical strikes, precision airpower, and limited cross-border operations, alongside a doctrinal rejection of earlier assumptions that hybrid groups could be effectively “contained.” Increasingly, both recognise that they are confronting ideologies rather than discrete organisations. These similarities are rooted partly in shared historical origins, specifically British-imposed partitions that produced enduring territorial disputes and partly in a shared modern battlespace shaped by cyber operations, disinformation, and AI-enabled propaganda.

China as a Dual-Edged Force in Regional Integration

China’s expanding presence further reinforces the convergence between West Asia and South Asia. Beijing’s deep partnership with Pakistan, particularly through CPEC, provides Islamabad with economic resilience and advanced military capabilities, enabling sustained proxy activity even amid fiscal instability. At the same time, Chinese involvement in Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka complicates India’s efforts to foster regional integration and strategic cohesion.

Yet China’s vulnerabilities including attacks on its nationals by ISKP, instability along its western periphery, and risks to Belt and Road projects, constrain its ambitions. Beijing thus functions simultaneously as a stabilising actor seeking regional order and as a complicating force whose policies intensify strategic competition. This dual role further illustrates the interconnected nature of the regional security system.

Conclusion

West Asia and South Asia can no longer be understood as separate strategic arenas. Hybrid proxy warfare, transnational radicalisation, maritime vulnerabilities, and great-power competition bind them into a single security complex. For India, this convergence necessitates treating the Gulf as an integral component of its security architecture, investing in advanced intelligence and perception management, and deepening strategic partnerships with Israel and key Gulf states. For Israel, the evolving environment highlights India’s growing relevance as a security partner and underscores the Gulf's centrality in shaping regional stability.

The space stretching from Gaza to Kabul now operates as a shared hybrid battlespace. Recognising this systemic convergence is essential for crafting coherent and effective security strategies for the decade ahead.

(The views expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of CNAWS.)