ABSTRACT
Unlike in Europe or in some other parts of the world, contestation to exert geo-economic influence still remains nascent in South Asia. Yet geo-economics clearly plays an important role for the relations between India and Pakistan, which have been highly conflictive ever since the partition of British India. Both India and Pakistan have been using various geo-economic instruments to expand their influence in Central and South Asia and the relationship between the two antagonists has started to take an increasingly geo-economic character, becoming a ‘continuation of war by other means’. This chapter applies Luttwak’s arguments on geo-economics, examining how India and Pakistan have injected the grammar of commerce into the logic of conflict in their bilateral relationship. The key questions that this chapter focusses on are: how does India apply geo-economic instruments to expand its influence in Central and South Asia? How does Pakistan react to them?
