On 6th December 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Delhi for his second diplomatic visit overseas since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, after a brief meeting with President Donald Trump in Geneva on 16th June 2021. During his 5 hour conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he not only signed 28 Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) on issues ranging from trade, culture, education, intellectual property and so on but also agreed upon a programme of cooperation in the field of defence between the two countries until 2031. Further, in his press statements, President Putin called India a “great power”, a “friendly” country and a “time-tested friend” to re-emphasise the importance of close ties between the two countries. However, this recent development cannot be viewed in the domain of Indo-Russian diplomacy in an isolated silo. It must be placed in the context of its multifarious impact on global stakeholders such as China, the United States and the Indo-Pacific region, especially in the field of defence and security. 

This article aims to answer three relevant questions in detail: firstly, what does the recent Indo-Russia defence deal reveal about their alliance-building strategies? Secondly, can concrete inferences be made about the potential consequences of this meeting on Indo-Sino and Indo-US relations? Lastly, is the conventional prism of polarised foreign policy coherent with India’s ambitions in South East Asia and the Indo-Pacific as a unified security unit?

Strengthening of Indo-Russian Ties

According to a 2021 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, approximately 23% of Russia’s arms exports between 2016 and 2020 were to India. This trend must be analysed by considering the financial constraints on India, as highlighted by Nandan Unnikrishnan, an expert on India’s relations with Russia at the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank based in New Delhi. He stated that, “India doesn’t have the kind of kitty China has with all our developmental challenges … While American or Israeli equipment is state of the art, the money it requires is three times more.” However, even beyond the budgetary considerations, as noted by the Russian Foreign Minister the potential of Russian military support is not only symbolic of strong ties between the two countries but has a very important practical meaning for the Indian defense capability. The latest demonstration of this has been the deployment of the S-400 surface-to-air missile system in the Punjab sector, specifically to thwart aerial threats from Pakistan and China. Even beyond this, India and Russia signed a $600 million deal to locally manufacture hundreds of thousands of Russian AK-203 rifles and an additional agreement to extend bilateral cooperation on military technology for the subsequent decade. 

However, the advantages for India lie beyond the defence domain as well. Firstly, such cooperation is very strongly linked to constant patterns of association in the field of energy which is paramount especially in the aftermath of the latest commitments made by the country at the COP26 recently. Secondly, with the prelude of the Russia-India-China (RIC) Grouping during the Doklam dispute and the Sino-US rivalry, Russia has emerged as a key third party in managing tensions between India and China. Even from the perspective of Russia, it must be noted that President Putin arrived during a military buildup near Ukraine with the European Union and the United States threatening to impose sanctions against the Kremlin; and fostering closer allies with India is an attempt to reduce dependency on the West. The next section analyses the possible manifestations of close cooperation between India and Russia on its ties with the United States and China. 

Ramifications on India’s policy towards the US and China 

Last year, India and the US signed a deal giving New Delhi access to Washington’s satellite data which is crucial for targeting missiles and other military assets, and even generally Prime Minister Modi’s foreign policy has focused on maintaining and furthering India’s alliance with the United States. Hence, it has been questioned if India could be subject to sanctions from the US. However, considering the past couple of weeks as evidence, the Biden Administration is not ready to sacrifice its alliance network in the greater power struggle against China, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. No means of deterrence have been applied against India, while the regular data sharing mechanisms within the ambit of QUAD have not been undermined. This further represents a success in Indian foreign policy strategy, demonstrating the clear possibility of pragmatic patterns of association with both US and Russia in the Post-Cold War era, depending on where interest coincides. 

As is true of the United States, there has been no documented mention of China in the talks between Prime Minister Modi and President Putin. However, in the 2+2 meeting among the Foreign and Defence ministers of the two countries, Mr. Rajnath Singh projected “.... the extraordinary militarisation and expansion of armament in our neighbourhood and the completely unprovoked aggression on our northern border since early summer of 2020 have thrown in several challenges” as one of the biggest problems being encountered by India and called upon for greater support from Russia in this realm. The New York Times built on this focus area by publishing an article in 2021 with the subtitle “India’s purchase of a missile defense system signaled that it was more worried about an emboldened China at its borders than about angering the United States”. While this statement succinctly represents the emerging transformations in the relationships among the four nation-states, it can be deemed reductive.  It downplays the greater power struggle in the Indo-Pacific region and the relevance of ASEAN as a key fulcrum of control in the region. 

ASEAN and the Indo-Pacific Region: Renewed Policy Priorities for India

During the Indo-Russian Summit, the Foreign Minister of India stated that “We (India and Russia) both have a common interest in ASEAN centrality and ASEAN-driven platforms”. This commitment seems slightly at odds with the extensive involvement in the US-led QUAD initiative supported by Japan and Australia as a power bloc to counter Chinese expansionist policies across the Indo-Pacific region. The root cause of such perceived irony lies in fixing the US and Russia at the core of Indian foreign policy objectives. However, this understanding is fundamentally reductive as it ignores the centrality of the “Act East Policy” and the Indo-Pacific dialogue forums such as the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) in PM Modi’s diplomatic ambitions. 

This shift in policy ambitions is rooted in a self-defence mechanism which not only aims at blocking Chinese influence in the neighbourhood but also the cold conflict with Pakistan which has left the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) rather ineffective to foster greater cooperation and alliance building. The consequence of such measures has mandated a transformation in the realist motives behind ties with pre-existing allies such as Russia and the United States, and also an upheaval in the manner in which foreign policy analysts understand India’s policy priorities. While the future projection of these defence and security alliances remains to be witnessed, it is clear that India’s diplomatic strategies must no longer be characterised within the prism of a US-Russia and US-China dichotomy.