Tanvi Madan
During the Cold War, South Asia was largely considered a peripheral theater. U.S.-Soviet competition affected the countries in the region and shaped their choices, but the subcontinent itself was not generally the primary, or even secondary, arena in the superpower rivalry. It was only with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that the region came into the Cold War spotlight for any length of time.
The landscape today is different. The region is already involved in and affected by competition between the major powers—a dynamic that is only likely to intensify in the future. Significantly, the region is the primary site of one major power competition—that between China and India. Moreover, the crucial global competition expected to define the coming era—U.S.-China rivalry—involves a country abutting South Asia. And Beijing has been increasing its presence and influence in almost every South Asian country and in the Indian Ocean region.
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