Sergey Saenko, international observer

Over the past few decades, India’s foreign policy has been considered a model of strategic balancing: New Delhi has managed to maintain good relations with both Moscow and Washington, as well as with a number of other major world players, with the possible exception of Beijing and Islamabad.

In many ways, this was facilitated by the previously seemingly eternal liberal world order, in which India could implement its key principles in the field of foreign and domestic policy – sovereignty, great power and accelerated economic development. But now times have changed, and US dominance of the world is coming to an end. In this regard, many politicians and experts are wondering if New Delhi will still be able to find a balance in relations between Moscow and Washington.

In addition, the events of recent months have taken India out of its relative comfort zone. The new reality poses a large number of challenges to it, which the Indian leadership has so far successfully overcome, still demonstrating an exceptional ability not to seriously quarrel with anyone and to derive maximum benefit from the conflicts of other great powers. In this regard, many countries simply envy India’s ability to sometimes balance on the brink of a foul and make compromises where necessary.

Today, we note, New Delhi’s strategy is to diversify its foreign policy options. It is no secret that India does not approve of Russia’s Special Military Operation (SVO) in Ukraine, but prefers to keep criticism to itself and not speak it out loud. In Washington, in turn, they understand that they cannot afford to offend India too much or dictate to her how to behave in the international arena, since Washington needs her in the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR) to counter China.

At the same time, the United States, still powerful in all respects, is one of the most priority and important partners for India, and there is no reason for New Delhi to quarrel with them. In turn, Washington believes that the two Asian giants must certainly conflict over spheres of influence in the ITR. For this reason, the United States sometimes turns a blind eye to much of what other countries would be blamed for. For example, on the actions of New Delhi on the Kashmir issue. Instead, India is “the world’s largest democracy” and Washington and New Delhi are declared “natural allies”.

Based on the foregoing, Washington believes that the United States does not need to conclude a full-fledged military alliance with India, but just New Delhi’s participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), which, in addition to India, includes the United States, Australia and Japan. It is believed that Washington only needs to increase the military resources of New Delhi, without binding itself with unnecessary obligations.

Incidentally, this alignment of forces is also quite satisfactory to the Indian leadership, so New Delhi is not ready to give up mutually beneficial cooperation with the United States. Moreover, Washington does not demand anything in particular in return. In addition, we note that more than two million Indians living in America are actively investing in India, helping to raise the national economy with American money. In addition, the United States is a world leader in technology and the largest consumer of Indian export IT services, which is also important for New Delhi.

The current Indian authorities, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are solving a rather difficult task: they are developing relations with the United States without becoming dependent on them. As the main trump card, New Delhi uses the same political interest of Washington in India to confront China and, if necessary, can go on principle. A good example is the story of the purchase of Russian anti-aircraft missile systems (SAM) S-400, when India reacted harshly to attempts to impose secondary sanctions. As a result, the US was forced to back down and curtail pressure on New Delhi on this issue. At the same time, we note that in less critical cases, as in the situation with the purchase of Iranian oil, India demonstrated its readiness to take into account the concerns of the United States and stopped its imports. At least it stated formally.

As for the question of how to further build relations with Russia, it has become perhaps the most serious challenge for the Indian elites today. On the one hand, Moscow is a traditional partner, friendship with which has been sealed by many decades of strong cooperation and repeatedly tested for strength. Moreover, this idea of ​​the nature of relations between Moscow and New Delhi is firmly rooted in Indian society, as well as in parts of the country’s political and military elites, and the authorities cannot ignore these sentiments. On the other hand, relations with Russia are devoid of the obvious strategic meaning that they had in Soviet times: then the USSR and India were alarmed by the expansionist plans of China, and the Soviet-Indian alliance guaranteed that Beijing would not risk hitting one of the neighbors without the risk of being hit from another member of the alliance.

Currently Russian-Chinese relations have improved to such an extent that the Indian media and some experts even seriously talk about Moscow’s subordination to Beijing. In addition, until recently, relations between Russia and India were deprived of an economic basis, which the Indian elites perceive as an indispensable element of a strategic partnership. Indeed, so far the trade turnover between the two countries does not exceed $11 billion, the lion’s share of which fell on military-technical cooperation (MTC) and peaceful atom. Meanwhile trade between Russia and China today has exceeded $150 billion. At the same time, Moscow, in the eyes of official New Delhi, has until recently retained its value as a potential partner in a future polycentric world order, which would allow India to regulate relations with the United States in a favorable direction.

However, this alignment of forces has sunk into oblivion with the beginning of the NWO. Russia, cut off from Western investment, technology and markets, has found an alternative in the East. India suddenly received a whole package of proposals that were hard to refuse. Most notable was Russia’s willingness to sell oil at a huge discount, and India was quick to take advantage of it. So, before February, Russia accounted for only 2% of Indian oil imports, and in September – already 23%, thanks to which Moscow bypassed Iraq and Saudi Arabia in importing “black gold” to India. This behavior of India caused bewilderment in the West, to say the least – irritation. There is only one reason – instead of supporting Western sanctions against Russia, New Delhi, on the contrary, only strengthens and expands cooperation with Moscow.

True, it is not entirely clear to what extent New Delhi understands the long-term, truly strategic consequences of Russia’s turn to India, Moscow’s willingness to share existing technologies and build new production chains, up to the conjugation of entire areas of national economies. The scale of the changes taking place in the world today is so great that it takes time to comprehend it. And the results of the decisions that the Indian leadership will make in the coming months, apparently, will determine the relationship between Moscow and New Delhi for many decades to come. This is especially important given the fact that in the current geopolitical realities, India acts as not just a major regional power, but claims to be a truly great power on a global scale.

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