Russia and China whenever geopolitically cornered globally have displayed the propensity to actively advocate for revival of the Russia-India-China Trilateral as an optical geopolitical leverage against United States and the West.
In recent weeks, this has surfaced once again, with now China voicing that India should agree to Russian advocacy of the revival of the Russia-India-China Trilateral. This advocacy was last most active in the latter half of the 2000s when India was signing the US-India Civil Nuclear Deal and the US-India Strategic Partnership was becoming substantive.
In 2025, India has emerged in her own right as a Major Power in the global strategic calculus. India has amply exhibited its national power attributes and heading India towards 'Real Strategic Autonomy'. Incapacitating Pakistan's offensive capabilities with 'Deep Strikes' in Pakistan's Heartland during OP SINDOOR despite Pakistan's nuclear blackmail and China's overt support evidently support this assertion.
So, the question that comes to the fore is as to how India geopolitically and strategically benefits if it opts for revival of the Russia-India-China-Trilateral?
In my assessment, no geopolitical or strategic gains accrue to India in 2025 or thereafter by once again participating actively in a "Revived" Russia-India-China Trilateral.
Russia is bogged down in 2025 in a strategic quagmire of its own creation in the Ukraine War. China in my assessment i2025 is "besieged" geopolitically and increasingly internally with serious domestic upheaval in the offing.
More significantly, Russia and China figure "high" in the 'Threat Perceptions' of the United States, UK, France, Germany, Japan and Australia with which India has forged Strategic Partnerships.
In fact, in 2025, the global scene today presents two Major Powers Groups confronting each other, directly or by proxy, namely, United States & its Allies versus the Russia-China Axis.
India should therefore in 2025, or even thereafter not be ensnared into a geopolitical swamp from which it would be difficult to wriggle out without significant geopolitical losses if it once again becomes active in Russia-India-China Trilateral.
Even in the heyday when India found the Russia-India-China Trilateral geopolitically an attractive proposition in past Indian political dispensations, decades ago, my writings then argued too that it was not in India's national interests to be part of such a Trilateral.
The Russia-India-China Trilateral, geometrically too, was never, and even now, a sound proposition for India.
Taking the Trilateral as a Geometrical Tringle, Russia sits at the top of the Triangle with India and China forming the two ends of the base of the Triangle. With India and China figuring as 'implacable enemies', the base of this Triangle inherently crumbles under its own contradictory adversarial weight.
In the last two decades, can India forget the Chinese and Russian (under Chinese pressures) anti-Indian geopolitical gimmicks in South Asia against India?
A Russia-China-Pakistan compact was very much visible on Afghanistan where both Russia and China sidelined India from dialogues on Afghanistan in Moscow forgetting that India had sizeable geopolitical stakes there.
A petulant Russia then also went on to supply military hardware to Pakistan to strategically discomfit India. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's statements then were certainly not India-friendly. President Putin's Special Advisor Kabulov was decidedly anti-Indian.
China's Compulsive Obsessive Disorder of "Downsizing India" geopolitically, militarily and now adding 'Economic Warfare" stands well documented in my past and recent writings.
China's persistent record of supporting Pakistan's State-sponsored terrorism against India both by vetoing UN Resolutions censuring Pakistan or Pakistan Army affiliated Jihadi Groups reinforces China's postures as an 'Inveterate & Implacable Enemy of India'.
Does India need or seem to be a part of any 'Coalition' with Russia and China with their demonstrated record not only perceived as 'Disruptive Powers' globally, but also with convergent Russia-Chia Axis strategic aims at cross-purposes with India's National Interests?
Concluding, it needs to be reiterated that surely PM Narendra Modi and the Indian foreign policy establishment would be seized with the above factors and would resist any pressures to actively participate in a 'revived' Russia-India -China Trilateral.
Political 'tactical expediency' in short-term to soft-pedal this issue for access to Russian cheap oil and India securing its supply chains against China's 'Economic Warfare' disruptions are well -understandable.
