India-Russia ties are facing a long-term conundrum

A new foreign policy concept released by Russia on March 31 reveals the direction of Putin's thinking.

A new foreign policy concept released by Russia on March 31 is in many ways a continuation of and doubling down on the old anti-western strategy and direction that have become the hallmarks of President Vladimir Putin’s thinking.

The problem here is that Putin wishes to club China and India together as part of a united front to counterbalance the West, but Beijing and New Delhi have their own distinct policies that do not coincide with Moscow’s worldview. (Reuters)

The document slams the western policy of “confrontation and hegemonic ambitions” and hails the advent of a multipolar world order, which is presented as an inevitability that cannot be stopped by the West’s “neocolonialism” and “logic of global dominance”. It also recommits to “comprehensive deepening of ties and enhancement of coordination with friendly sovereign global centres of power”, namely China and India, and presents these two Asian countries as keys to Russia’s quest to overturn the unfair western-made international system.

Although the new Russian document is a crystal-clear elucidation of Putin’s core beliefs and preferences, it faces serious headwinds due to the widening fissures in world politics. The Russian war in Ukraine has led to Moscow burning all bridges with Washington and Brussels. In earlier times, Russia had a grand strategic goal of separating Europe from the United States (US), thereby weakening the threat posed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Now that the US and Europe have coalesced around defending Ukraine, Russia is compelled to look at China and India as its main fallbacks to push back against the West.

The problem here is that Putin wishes to club China and India together as part of a united front to counterbalance the West, but Beijing and New Delhi have their own distinct policies that do not coincide with Moscow’s worldview.

China still enjoys humongous trade and investment links with the US and Europe. Beijing wants access to western technology and capital, despite growing western fears and restrictions on transfers of sensitive materials to China. India’s economic and military ties with the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Australia are booming. India wants to leverage its western partnerships to push back against Chinese expansionism.

Russia’s hope that its “two great friends”— China and India — get along well with each other, and join hands with Moscow to check western influence, is not based on an objective reading of the contemporary configuration of forces, or the insecurity that India feels vis-à-vis China’s military and economic coercion. The new Russian concept document says that Moscow will work with New Delhi to develop “resistance to destructive actions of unfriendly states and their alliances”, which suggests Russia believes western powers are unfriendly and unnecessary for India’s rise.

The fundamental Russian misreading here is that it assumes China to be a benign and non-hegemonic actor, an assessment that India does not share. Russia’s refusal to even accept the validity of the term Indo-Pacific — even as New Delhi’s entire strategy rests on the success of this construct — is a core difference. In light of these intensifying fault lines in Eurasia, as well as the economic, technological and military degradation of Russia due to western sanctions imposed since the Ukraine war, how can Russia and India sustain their “special and privileged strategic partnership’”in the future?

Can Russia, which has no access to western components and knowhow, still remain a world leader in manufacturing and co-producing advanced weapons systems? Can Russia, which has delayed the delivery of the S-400 anti-missile system to India due to pressures of the Ukraine war, really help India to ensure a stable balance of power against China? Or will the Russia-India relationship dilute into a purely transactional one of buying and selling products for monetary gains?

For the moment, Russia continues to give India whatever it asks for, and New Delhi has stuck to a balanced position on the Ukraine question. Russia’s self-image as a proud power centre and independent pole in a multipolar order gives some assurance that it will never turn into a pliant vassal state of China.

Yet, given the enlarging geostrategic cracks, it is obvious that Moscow’s dream of a joint Russia-India-China (RIC) axis to counter the West is wobbling. To paraphrase Kautilya, the master of Indian realpolitik, “My enemy’s enemy is my friend.” If China is India’s enemy, what exactly is Russia going to mean for India in time to come? We cannot shy away from reckoning with this question, at least in the longer term.

Sreeram Chaulia is dean, Jindal School of International Affairs

The views expressed are personal