United States and India in 2024 bonded together by a vibrant Global Strategic Partnership, however, now face a piquant situation, where their differing policy perspectives on Russia, is causing irritable strains, and which could raise unintended implications.
United States and India's differing policy perceptions on Russia have come into sharper focus with Indian PM Narendra Modi's recent visit to Moscow where for optical reasons, Russian President Putin, displayed more than usual effusive bonhomie.
The above contextually viewed with India's abstention on US-sponsored UN Resolution calling on Russia to cease the war in Ukraine, has drawn American criticism.
United States in 2024 perceives Russia, after Russian Invasion of Ukraine, as a potent threat to European security and a threat to Indo Pacific security, when viewed in the Russia-China context.
India in 2024, weighed down by multilateralism foreign policy prescriptions, and with the historical record of Russia-India Strategic Partnership, predating the US-India Strategic Partnership, by decades, is loath to outrightly jettison this relationship.
The above Indian policy perception prevails despite that Russia in 2024 is strategically closely tied to India's arch-enemy China.
In terms of implications, India stands to lose more geopolitically, than United States, if both India and the United States cannot overcome the strain caused in their differing policy perceptions on Russia.
The irrefutable fact is that India's considerable weightage in global geopolitics power-play surfaced only with US-India "Estrangement" of the last century having been transformed into "Active Engagement" in the last ten years.
The above set in motion a strategic re-evaluation of India in the foreign policy calculations in Major Powers capitals.
The United States has been accommodative of India's differing policy perceptions on Russia and Iran for the last many years.
However. in 2024, when the World Order is heavily polarized, reminiscent of Cold War 1.0 vintage, and with Russia-China Axis in active play in the Ukraine War, the United States, West, and US Allies in the Pacific, including countries like Japan, may not be all that accommodative of India's perceptions of Russia.
Visible recently, as a result of the above, possibly, are the United States to forge a newer set of strategic groupings superimposed on the existing security architecture in Western Pacific. India does not figure in them.
So, what are India's options to restore the vibrancy in US-India Strategic Partnership?
While I am not suggesting that India should jettison its long-standing relations with Russia, it is also incumbent on India not to give the impression that it is playing the 'India Card' with more than protocol diplomacy.
Contextual geopolitical landscape of a heavily confrontationist bipolar world in 2024, as repeatedly stressed by me earlier, does not offer India the bandwidth of Nehruvian foreign policy stances, juggling Non-alignment with Multilateralism.
India till 2047, needs a' Countervailing Power' as a standby to face a highly belligerent China in no mood to settle issues with India.
The choice for India is between United States and Russia. Russia does not have the geopolitical weight and strategic potential to be one.
United States provides a good option to be India's Countervailing Power against China. It needs to be recalled that in 1962, Nehru was ultimately forced to enlist United States assistance to countervail China.
India needs to prudently make its 'Strategic Choices' as to who serves India's national security interests more effectively.
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