Recently, U.S. have expressed concerns privately, directly to the Indian government of India on Mr. Modi visit to Russia
About Strategic Autonomy
- Definition: It denotes the ability of a state to pursue its national interests and adopt its preferred foreign policy without being constrained in any manner by other states.
- Unipolar World: Theoretically,, only a lone superpower in a unipolar international order truly possesses strategic autonomy since it is the only country that would wield overwhelming economic, industrial, military and technological capabilities and thus the power to resist pressure from all other states.
- Bipolar World: Even superpowers become susceptible to the pressures exerted by their superpower peers in bipolar or multipolar orders, which means that their ability to be strategically autonomous is not absolute but only relative.
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Evolution Of India’s Approach To Maintaining Strategic Autonomy Has Evolved
All Indian governments since Independence have followed strategic autonomy in one form or the other, whether it is called non-alignment, multi-alignment, multi-directional foreign policy or strategic autonomy: Policy of De-hyphenation
- Bipolar World Order (1947 to 1991)
- During this period, global power was primarily divided between the U.S. and the USSR.
- India’s Approach: India adopted the principle of Non-Alignment to:
- Resist Dilution of Sovereignty: Avoid being drawn into the ideological and military conflicts of the Cold War superpowers.
- Rebuild its Economy: Focus on economic development without external interference.
- Consolidate its Integrity: Maintain political stability and national unity.
- Conventional understanding about India’s foreign policy: It suggests that India’s foreign policy was too idealistic in the initial years to understand the currents of power politics.
- Non-Alignment Impact: But non-alignment and Asian solidarity, as envisaged by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and others, helped India, a newly decolonised republic that was born into a bipolar global order
- It mobilizes voices in the Third World and stays out of both blocs and pursues its interests and those of the newly decolonised countries.
- This gave both a moral footing and pragmatic levers to India’s foreign policy.
Non-Alignment Movement
- Non Alignment Movement (NAM) Founded in 1961
- It was created by the heads of Yugoslavia, India, Egypt, Ghana and Indonesia.
- Background: The Non-Aligned Movement was formed during the Cold War as an organization of States that did not seek to formally align themselves with either the United States or the Soviet Union, but sought to remain independent or neutral.
- The movement represented the interests and priorities of developing countries.
- Objective of Non Alignment Movement (NAM): NAM has sought to “create an independent path in world politics that would not result in member States becoming pawns in the struggles between the major powers.”
- Three basic elements that have influenced its approach: It identifies the right of independent judgment, the struggle against imperialism and neo-colonialism, and the use of moderation in relations with all big powers
Non Alignment Movement (NAM) Principles
- Respect for the principles enshrined in the charter of the United Nations and international law.
- Respect for sovereignty, sovereign equality and territorial integrity of all States.
- Peaceful settlement of all international conflicts in accordance with the charter of the United Nations.
- Respect for the political, economic, social and cultural diversity of countries and peoples.
- Defense and promotion of shared interests, justice and cooperation, regardless of the differences existing in the political, economic and social systems of the States, on the basis of mutual respect and the equality of rights.
- Respect for the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence, in accordance with the charter of the United Nations
- Non-interference in the internal affairs of States. No State or group of States has the right to intervene either directly or indirectly, whatever the motive, in the internal affairs of any other State.
- Promotion and defence of multilateralism and multilateral organisations as the appropriate frameworks to resolve, through dialogue and cooperation, the problems affecting humankind.
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- Unipolar World Order (1991 to 2008)
- The fall of the Soviet Union led to a unipolar world dominated by the U.S., with China rising as a significant power.
- India’s Approach:
- Engaging with New Partners: India intensified relations with the U.S., Israel, and ASEAN countries to diversify its strategic partnerships.
- Securing Nuclear Options: Conducted nuclear tests in 1998 (Pokhran II) to establish itself as a nuclear power and enhance its strategic autonomy.
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Evolution of the Shift
- Initially: India initially stayed equidistant to both the capitalist and the communist blocs.
- Treaties escalated tensions: But after the U.S. formed new treaty alliances in Asia (Pakistan became a member of both the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, or SEATO and the Central Treaty Organization, or CENTO) and China moved closer towards the U.S. after breaking up with the Soviet Union,
- India retaliated: India began building stronger ties with Moscow, but without forfeiting its strategic autonomy.
- Disintegration: And when the Soviet Union and the communist bloc collapsed by 1991, India chose greater integration with the global economy and closer strategic partnership with the West.
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- Multipolar World Order (Present)
- Currently, power is distributed among multiple countries with significant military, cultural, and economic influence.
- India’s Approach: Navigating complex global dynamics by building strategic partnerships while maintaining an independent foreign policy stance.
Policy of De-hyphenation
- India stated about the “de-hyphenated” relationship, means India would deal with each country separately.
- In fact, the de-hyphenation is actually a careful balancing act, with India shifting from one side to another as the situation demands.
- In 2017, in an unprecedented move, India’s PM visited only Israel and not Palestine.
- Then, the recent visit of the Prime Minister to Palestine, Oman and the UAE is again a continuation of similar policy.
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Wrong Presumption of USA
- U.S. need not see this as an unfriendly foreign policy choice:
- India’s Vision: India is not a disruptive, revisionist power. It supports a multilateral global order, and that is because it wants the international system to be more representative in line with the geopolitical realities of the present.
- India wants to improve the system where its voice, and that of the Global South, would be heard with greater interest.
- Strategic Autonomy for India: For India, Strategic autonomy does not call for isolationism.
- It calls for greater engagement with different power centres rooted in informed national interest.
- Not a Zero Sum Game But Positive-Sum Game: Theorists of strategic autonomy do not look at foreign policy as a zero-sum game, where one party gains something at the expense of others.
- For them, it is a positive-sum game, where everyone gains.
- For example: India’s energy trade with Moscow made sure that Russian crude kept flowing into the market, helping steady global oil prices.
- Its close cooperation with Russia can also act as a speed breaker in Moscow’s quasi-alliance with China, which the West sees as the only “revisionist” power that has the capability to rewrite the existing global order.
- Coming out of Unipolar Mentality: This is the unipolar mentality — you are either with us or against us. This approach was not quite successful even during the unipolar era, as the two-decade-long war against terror would testify
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Change In Global Order
From India’s point of view, the global order is again changing.
- Not Unipolar anymore: The U.S. remains the world’s most powerful country but the world order is no longer unipolar.
- China Competing: China, already the world’s second largest economy, is rising as a strong competitor to America’s global primacy.
- Russia Competing: Russia is challenging the western security architecture in Europe, militarily.
- West Asia Crisis: In West Asia, a shadow war between Israel, an American ally, and Iran, a close Russian strategic partner, is heating up.
- India’s Vision: India wants to strike a balance between great powers without joining any alliance system. And for this, maintaining its strategic autonomy is essential.
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Importance of Russia
- Economical Beneficial: While energy ties with Russia are largely opportunistic and driven by cheap prices (India’s crude imports from Russia jumped from $2.4 billion in 2021-22 to $46.5 billion in 2023-24), the defence partnership is structural.
- Defence Partner: Russia is the source of over 40% of India’s defence imports, and 86% of the Indian military’s equipment is of Russian origin.
- Important Partner in Asia: Russia is also an important partner in continental Asia where India works with Eurasian powers for economic progress, connectivity and tackling security challenges.
- China Factor: Russia’s deepening ties with China alter the essence of India’s historical partnership with Moscow.
- Opportunity: But it is also an opportunity to recast the India-Russian partnership as a more equal bilateral partnership — during the Cold War it was heavily lopsided — where both sides would be mindful of each other’s sensitivities. India would not like to see Russia, cut off from the West, going completely into the Chinese embrace, and Moscow would like to have multiple options rather than putting all its eggs in one basket of the ‘Middle Kingdom’.
- Importance of India’s Autonomy
- If India were part of any alliance systems, such as Germany, for example, which had to silently accept the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline which it part owns, India would not have the strategic space to pursue its partnership with Russia, while staying a closer partner of the West.
Does Strategic Autonomy Burden for India?
- Current World order: In the current world order where countries are polarised and tilt towards either one of the poles, maintaining strategic autonomy is a difficult task.
- For example, US-China Rivalry: Navigating the growing geopolitical tensions between the United States and China is a significant challenge. India needs to balance its strategic partnerships with both powers while safeguarding its interests.
- Russia-Ukraine Conflict: While maintaining warm ties with Russia, including agreements on boosting trade and cooperation on various fronts, India also addressed concerns about the Ukraine war and the need for peaceful resolution.
- This balancing act becomes increasingly difficult as geopolitical tensions rise, forcing India to make tough choices that may disappoint one partner or another.
- Multilateral Commitments: Balancing commitments in various international organizations (UN, BRICS, G20, etc.) while maintaining an independent policy stance is complex.
- For example: SCO led by Russia-China is seen as counter-NATO organisation, while the Quad includes the US and its allies is seen as a coalition to counter China, and by extension Russia.
- India’s Marginal Role in Key Global Flashpoints:
- Globally, while India is well positioned to be a key player in several key geopolitical flashpoints, in reality its role has often been marginal at best.
- For Instance: New Delhi has played a marginal role in denuclearization talks as a non-party to the P5+1 process. Again, New Delhi has inherent interests in seeing a rapprochement in the Iran-U.S. relationship given India’s need to ensure low and stable energy prices and its overwhelming dependence on oil imports from the Middle East.
- India’s Status as a developing country: The evolving structure of the global economy necessitates further domestic reforms. However, India’s geo economic position constrains its geopolitical influence, allowing China to exert greater influence in India’s neighbourhood due to its financial strength.
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India’s Shift from Strategic Autonomy to Vishwamitra
One of the subtle but significant changes in the conduct of India’s foreign policy over the last decade has been the evolution of its diplomatic vocabulary:
- Incongruence of Idea:
- The idea of “strategic autonomy” seems contradictory when one considers that India is the world’s third-largest economy, with the third-largest armed forces and the fourth-largest defense budget.
- This concept originates from the period of post-colonial insecurity and the persistent anxiety regarding being coerced into undesired decisions by dominant global powers.
- Limits of Strategic Autonomy for Major Powers:
- As a significant power in its own right, the scope of autonomy naturally broadens.
- Even so, there is no such thing as “absolute strategic autonomy” as even the world’s most powerful nation, the US, does not have total freedom of action.
- Developmental Challenges for India:
- Although the aggregate size of its economy gives India some of the critical attributes of a major power, its low per capita income underlines the massive developmental challenges at home.
- Decline in Strategic Autonomy Reference:
- It has been replaced by references to India as a “leading power”, “Vishwamitra”, “net security provider”, “first responder” to regional crises, “like-minded coalitions”, “minilateralism”, “interoperability”, and “global public goods”.
July 19, 2024