4 min readNew DelhiSep 12, 2026 01:48 PM IST
First published on: Sep 11, 2026 at 07:33 PM IST
The contours of regional order in West Asia appear to be reshaped amid the US-Israel war on Iran. At the same time, the idea of Indo-Pacific is increasingly being discussed around the US adopting a more accommodative approach towards China.
In Europe, the Russia-Ukraine war has brought old security concerns and political boundaries to the surface. These developments point to a larger question: what is a region? Is it an area on a map, or does it also encompass shared identity, politics, and institutional arrangements?
The concept of region
Although region is often seen as an elusive concept, it can be generally understood as an area or territorial unit defined in terms of geographical, cultural and institutional features. As is evident, the concept has been explored across disciplines. Geographical understanding of the concept largely focuses on physical or spatial features.
Peter Schmitt-Egner, a professor in human geography, notes that the scholars of modern social geography have identified three basic elements necessary for a definition of region: spatial relationships, issues of scale, and relations between subjects and their territory.
In simple words, a region is not just a physical area on a map. Its meaning also emerges from how people, communities, and institutions experience, interact with, and give meaning to a particular territory. For instance, Africa represents a continental region, while the Arab world can be seen as a cultural region.
International relations scholars, on the other hand, place greater emphasis on institutions for defining the concept of region. This distinction is captured by Schmitt-Egner’s description of the region: “Whereas political science is mainly interested in the region as an action unit, regional studies and geography focus on the region as an action space.”
Why regions are formed
Nationalism and great power politics of the twentieth century are identified by international relations scholar Atul Mishra as the two driving forces that shaped the understanding of the region as institutional arrangements or networks.
Nationalism assigns political meaning to geographical space based on shared identity, sovereignty, etc. Great power politics, on the other hand, can transform geographical spaces into spheres of influence. US President Donald Trump’s ‘Donroe Doctrine’, modelled on the Monroe Doctrine of the nineteenth century, is seen as the return of imperial geopolitics in the Western Hemisphere.
The US military action in Venezuela earlier this year is a recent case in point that not only demonstrated the assertion of American power but also undermined Venezuelan sovereignty. On the eastern side of the globe, China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific presented complex challenges for other states in the region.
Such great power politics constitutes a driving force behind the idea of regionalism by which small states seek to safeguard their sovereignty and territorial autonomy. For instance, the major concern of the original five members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), formed at the height of the Cold War and the Vietnam War, was to minimise the manipulation and domination of external powers. Similarly, the emergence of the idea of the Indo-Pacific is largely discussed around the concern to balance China.
Threats to regionalism
However, the change in the Trump administration’s approach towards China from confrontation to accommodation has ignited debates over the idea of the Indo-Pacific. These debates help illustrate key features that make a region durable and effective, including shared identity, common interest, and commitment to rules and institutions.
But the global geopolitical tensions, manifested in the weakening of rules-based international order and growing militarism, appear to be rewriting the conditions for regionalism to function.
While the US-Israel war on Iran has opened up new dimensions of security cooperation in West Asia, concerns over the US-led Western order are discussed amid the 18th BRICS summit hosted by India on September 12 and 13. In addition to great power politics and militarism, nationalism in the form of populism is further undermining institutions, writes Atul Mishra.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Union Minister Piyush Goyal and others during BRICS Business Forum 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, in New Delhi. (@pmoindia/PTI) 
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