Decoding the News: As policymakers and business actors gather in places like Trieste to discuss the future of Indo-Mediterranean connectivity and strategic corridors cutting across Italy, the Mediterranean and Europe, developments on the ground between Sudan and Libya suggest that a parallel system of routes is already fully operational. These are not infrastructures designed by states, but adaptive—often illicit—circuits that are reshaping the geosecurity landscape between Africa and the Mediterranean.
The war behind the war: logistics as power: In an analysis for ISPI, Emmanuel Badi highlights how in Sudan frontlines tell only part of the story. The real determinant lies elsewhere: in the logistical networks that allow the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to sustain their operational capacity through fuel, weapons and cross-border supply flows. These supply chains, largely routed through Libya and supported by external actors such as the United Arab Emirates, reveal a deeper layer of the conflict—one in which power is not defined solely by territorial control, but by the ability to manage corridors of mobility.
- In this context, the concept of corridor governance becomes analytically central. In Badi’s account, actors such as the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), controlled by Khalifa Haftar’s family, have positioned themselves as “gatekeepers”, controlling airstrips, desert routes and logistical hubs across southern Libya. These are not passive transit spaces, but infrastructures of power. Control over corridors translates into leverage—over armed actors, external sponsors and, ultimately, the trajectory of the conflict itself.
From corridors to circuits: adaptive systems. Focusing only on Sudan, however, risks missing the broader pattern. What emerges is not simply a set of corridors, but a system of interconnected logistical circuits extending well beyond the battlefield.
- Ruben De Koning’s work for the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime—where Badi is also a senior fellow—clarifies this shift. Sudan’s war has activated a dense network of alternative routes across Chad, Libya, South Sudan, Kenya and the Central African Republic. When one pathway is disrupted, flows are rapidly reconfigured: northward via Kufra in Libya, southward through East Africa, or via makeshift airstrips constructed in Darfur.
- These are not linear corridors, but adaptive systems. Arms, gold, mercenaries and logistics move through a web of nodes capable of reconfiguring under pressure. Aviation plays a key role: repurposed civilian aircraft, covert cargo movements and informal landing strips allow actors to bypass formal control mechanisms. The result is a resilient war economy embedded in transnational supply chains.
Migration as infrastructure: Libya as a hub. This logic is not confined to warfare. Vas Shenoy’s analysis of the Bangladesh–Libya–Italy migration corridor shows how similar dynamics structure human mobility.
- Here again, Libya functions as a central hub—not for weapons, but for people. Migrants from South Asia often enter the country through legal channels, before being absorbed into transnational networks that move them toward coastal departure points and, ultimately, Europe. In 2025, Bangladeshi nationals accounted for roughly 31% of irregular arrivals in Italy along the Central Mediterranean route.
- The enabling environment is the same: political fragmentation, armed intermediaries and hybrid economies blending licit and illicit activities. Militias controlling coastal areas operate with logics similar to the “gatekeepers” in southern Libya. The function of the corridor changes, but its structure does not.
Corridors of instability: militants, weapons and illicit flows. These infrastructures of mobility also underpin broader security dynamics. Analyses by organizations such as the OECD show how routes across the Sahel, North Africa and the Horn of Africa are used for the movement of militant groups, weapons and resources. At the same time, flows of illicit substances—including emerging opioid routes—connect Asian production zones with North African and European markets.
- In this sense, the same infrastructures that sustain war and migration also act as vectors of instability. Fighters, arms and illicit goods move along overlapping routes, reinforcing the strategic relevance of these systems.
Beyond chokepoints: a parallel geography of corridors. Taken together, these dynamics point to a broader reality. The geopolitics of Indo-Mediterranean corridors is no longer limited to major chokepoints—Suez, Bab el-Mandeb, Malacca—nor to state-led projects such as IMEC.
- Alongside these “official” corridors, there exists a parallel geography: less visible, often informal, but equally influential. These are not marginal phenomena, but structural components of contemporary connectivity.
- This is where a geosecurity dimension emerges. While strategic debate focuses on designing and implementing connectivity infrastructures, developments from Sudan to Libya suggest that the real challenge lies in governing systems of mobility that already exist.
Hybrid actors and geosecurity governance. These systems are not external to state dynamics. Hybrid actors—militias, intermediaries, trafficking networks—operate in spaces that are sometimes tolerated and at times instrumentalized by regional and global powers. The relationship is not one of simple opposition, but of coexistence and, in some cases, convergence.
- This adds a critical layer to corridor analysis: governance is not only geopolitical, but increasingly geosecurity-driven. It requires addressing flows that are already active, not only those still being planned.
Trieste and the paradox of planned connectivity. From this perspective, recent discussions in Trieste take on a particular meaning. There, institutions and business actors debated the development of strategic corridors linking Europe to the Indo-Pacific, reflecting a clear ambition to translate connectivity visions into operational projects within what is now widely described as the “Indo-Mediterranean”. The port of Trieste, increasingly positioned at the intersection of European and eastern corridors, embodies this ambition.
- Yet while these corridors are being designed, others are already fully operational—often along similar geographies, but driven by entirely different logics. Illicit, adaptive and embedded in local realities, they demonstrate that connectivity is not a future scenario, but an existing condition with global implications.
A geosecurity challenge. State-led corridors are not irrelevant. But without governing informal and illicit routes, there is a risk of building infrastructures that coexist with uncontrolled flows. The challenge is therefore geosecurity: governing existing systems of mobility that shape stability, security and power projection.
