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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar hold a news conference in Washington, DC.
US warns India on dealing with Russia: “Pakistan is Plan B”
After years of favoring New Delhi, the US is now back to balancing between India and Pakistan.
The decade-long deterioration of ties with Islamabad, propelled by Pakistan’s support for the Taliban in Afghanistan and tilt toward China, had shaped Washington’s conventional thinking into a neat binary: that a democratic, anti-China India is ‘in’ and an autocratic, pro-China Pakistan is ‘out’ of the American camp.
That’s no longer the case in America’s response to India’s consistent hedging and betting on Russia, as well as Pakistan’s diplomatic overtures and counterterrorism cooperation. Indeed, the future of US positioning in South Asia seems to be shifting, as Washington resumes playing ball with both nuclear-armed rivals like it’s done for decades.
America’s pal, but Russia’s BFF. On Saturday, India abstained from voting for a US-sponsored UN Security Council resolution slamming Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory. This wasn’t the first time the Indians have refused to back the Americans — every UN resolution tabled against Russian aggression in Ukraine since the beginning of the war has seen India walk away from the crime scene.
For India watchers who acknowledge New Delhi’s stated policy of strategic autonomy — basically a we-will-do-the-right-thing-but-in-our-own-way approach to a values-based order — the latest abstention was a disappointment, coming just days after PM Narendra Modi was praised by Washington for lecturing Vladimir Putin about this not being “an era of war.”
Although Indian diplomats insist that dialogue is the only answer to settling disputes, Modi’s government is now being criticized even at home for speaking from both sides of its mouth, especially as the war takes on a nuclear dimension.
The frustration is premised on a contradiction. Though it is still counted as a strategic partner of the US and an important teammate on the Quad, India’s decades-long defense ties with Moscow continue to thrive.
The Indians are shoring up the Russian economy by buying more fossil fuels (albeit at steep discounts). This year, oil imports are up thirty-fold from 2021, and coal purchases have quadrupled. Meanwhile, the Indians remain Moscow’s biggest arms customer and continue buying sophisticated Russian weapons despite the risk of triggering US sanctions.
This attitude of sacrifice-rules-for-money by India shows that “since Russia invaded Ukraine, Modi and his government have become ultra-realist on foreign policy,” says Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.
The Indians, he explains, “have refused to condemn Russian aggression and its undermining of the rules-based international order, which New Delhi claims to uphold along with like-minded democratic states,” he said. Rather, India has prioritized discounted Russian oil — a business over values approach — which doesn't say much about India’s commitment to the rules-based system that it claims to support.
Pakistan as Plan B? But Washington isn’t just sitting pretty watching India play both sides. Responding to New Delhi’s hedging through its own, the US is gearing up to balance the military relationship with Islamabad.
After suspending all military aid in 2018 due to Pakistan’s support for the Taliban in Afghanistan, the US State Department reversed course last month, resuming critical military assistance to Islamabad. India, of course, is up in arms. After all, the F-16 fighter-bomber — which the Americans are servicing for the Pakistanis — was used to shoot down at least one Indian Air Force MiG-21 in 2019.
While the State Department has pushed back against India’s protests by saying it values its relations with both sides, Pakistan seems to have been let out of Washington’s doghouse. Last week, State fêted Pakistan’s foreign minister for a week-long sojourn, topped with a ceremony commemorating 75 years of diplomatic ties at the Museum of American Diplomacy. (His Indian counterpart — who was in town around the same time complaining about the Pakistani weapons deal — was also given the royal treatment, with a dinner at Blinken’s home.)
As far as the Pakistanis are concerned, the boys are back in town. This week, the Pentagon is hosting Pakistan’s all-powerful army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, who played a crucial role in the ousting of former prime minister Imran Khan, an anti-American populist. On Gen. Bajwa’s agenda: Pakistani support for Washington’s over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, as well as grappling with the Taliban, ISIS-K and al-Qaida.
“The US seems to be finally recognizing that despite the full-throated pronouncements from New Delhi about a rules-based international order, India’s need for cheap Russian oil and Russian weapons override everything else,” says Uzair Younis, director of the Pakistan Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
Given this context, he adds, Washington is finally realizing that it must also pursue “a parallel diplomatic path with Pakistan, especially given that New Delhi is unlikely to be weaned off its addiction to Russian energy and weapons any time soon.”
However, India will remain important for America. Surely, this maneuvering hasn’t ruptured the proximity between Washington and New Delhi – China remains their common rival, after all — but it is being seen as a tactical response to India’s dealing with the Russians.
Plus, after years of increasing dependency on China, the Pakistanis are only too eager to balance their interests with Washington, but only till the Chinese come back to them with a better offer for their rentier state.
Also, the resumption of US military aid to Pakistan — still paltry compared to America’s broad defense, economic, and tech ties with India — has not disturbed India’s standing as a “strategic partner." Though we are not back to hyphenating India with Pakistan — a Cold War-era Washingtonian trait that irritated New Delhi for decades — recent moves by the US have clearly irked the Indians. But are they going to reset US priorities in South Asia?
“One of the enduring challenges for the US-India relationship is that each country insists on maintaining cordial ties with the other’s key rival,” says Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center.
This problem appeared to be working itself out in recent years, as India reduced its share of Russian arms imports and the US cut off security aid to Pakistan. But now we are seeing a return to what Kugelman calls the “old normal” — India reasserting its friendship with Russia and the US restarting security ties with Pakistan.
“At the end of the day, neither New Delhi nor Washington are willing to let go of these longstanding relationships,” he explains.
Still, what the Americans are doing to the Indians — a diplomatic tit-for-tat, really — makes the long-term trajectory of India-Russia and US-Pakistan relations more unsettled than that of US-India relations.
For Kugmelman, “they’re still realities in the here and now. It’s little more than a nuisance for US-India relations, but a nuisance nonetheless.”
Bottom line: The Pakistanis might be back in play in Washington, but India’s not getting on any American blacklist anytime soon. Regardless, the US has put on its Great Power suit, and sent New Delhi a bill about the cost of doing business with the Russians.This article comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.
Ian Bremmer: Russia is a rogue state
Does Vladimir Putin have any real friends left?
In a Global Stage livestream conversation, Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer says that the Russian president is losing China and India, who are telling him they're worried about the war in Ukraine dragging on. Not even the Kazakhs (!) are on his side anymore.
Russia, he adds, has gone in a few months from being China's most important partner on the global stage to Beijing's junior sidekick, and become a rogue state, like Iran but much worse.
It's not just that Putin has nukes — Russia's cyber and espionage power is now pointed at Europe like it hasn't been since the Soviet Union collapsed 30 years ago.
Watch the full Global Stage livestream from the 77th UN General Assembly here.
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- The limits of a China-Russia partnership - GZERO Media ›
- Ian Bremmer: Global middle class erosion making people hungrier ... ›
- Why is Russia on the UN Security Council? - GZERO Media ›
- Ian Bremmer: A political power vacuum is bad news for the world - GZERO Media ›
- Putin hosts Kim Jong Un at arms summit - GZERO Media ›
Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
India’s fence-sitting on Ukraine hurts its chances of becoming global leader
It’s good to know who your friends are, especially when one global power tests the world’s resolve. In recent days, many countries have aligned against the Russian invasion of Ukraine — even Switzerland, with its 500-year-old neutrality, is said to be close to joining the EU in sanctioning Russia.
Yet, despite pressure from the US and appeals from Ukraine, India, the world’s largest democracy, has decided not to condemn Russia’s invasion or back sanctions. Delhi has appealed for a cessation of hostilities, but it abstained from voting Friday on a UN Security Council resolution condemning Russia’s invasion. While Delhi’s hedging got a terse response from Washington, the abstention earned India thanks from Moscow. But why is India, a partner of the West, the only major power not standing firm against Russian aggression?
The answer lies in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s current security priorities as well as his country’s long history of non-alignment. Ukraine puts India in a tough position of choosing between a “rules-based” international order with its new democratic partners, or toward its older policy of “strategic autonomy.” In defense terms, India is also between a rock and a hard place — as it’s heavily reliant upon Russian weapons to survive in its own rough and changing neighborhood. For now, Delhi is playing both sides, and it seems to be working.
“There’s a greater degree of understanding in Washington of India’s predicament than in the past,” says Dhruva Jaishankar, executive director of the Observer Research Foundation America. “I doubt anyone will want to completely sever relations with India — even defense relations — over India's position here.”
Still, playing the fence is always a gamble. “India is continuing to walk a tightrope with a serious risk of falling off — its silence has been taken as support by the Russian government, and the Biden administration is not happy,” says Manjari Chatterjee Miller, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Since independence in 1947, India has fought one war with China, three with Pakistan, and engaged in countless skirmishes with both. It has troops engaged in a face-off in the Himalayas against the People’s Liberation Army and has heavy forces constantly deployed along the heavily militarized border with Pakistan.
Now, China and Russia are tightening their bond, and the Russians are in exploratory strategic talks with Pakistan. In fact, on the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan was at the Kremlin in a three-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin. India is warily watching these changing dynamics.
Since the 1950s, India has counted on Russian weapons to defend itself, and for the past 12 years, Russia has been the source of nearly two-thirds of all Indian arms imports. India has been the world’s largest importer of Russian weapons, accounting for one-third of total Russian arms exports. Russia is the world’s second-largest arms exporter (the U.S. is no. 1), and India is its biggest and most loyal customer. Ditching Moscow would mean cutting off India’s vital military supply chain at a time when the Kremlin is moving closer to Delhi’s rivals.
There’s diplomatic history here, too. The two countries have backed each other for decades during their conflicts. Moscow has exercised its veto at the UN in favor of India four times since the 1950s. In 2014, as Russia annexed Crimea, India sided with Russia, calling it an internal issue and opposing sanctions against Moscow.
But since then, Delhi has moved closer to the West. Today, it is a standing member of the strategic security partnership known as the Quad, which also includes Australia, the United States, and Japan. Washington and Delhi cooperate on counterterrorism efforts, intelligence, and more. In short, India is a “major defense partner” to America, which makes for a sticky situation when it comes to Ukraine. Delhi can stick with its old, dependable Cold War-era weapons dealer cum ally — it is notably exploring ways to work with Moscow to lessen the impact of sanctions — or join its new friends against the Kremlin.
The US State Department says it is “okay” with India’s “distinct” relationship with Russia. It has even asked Modi to exercise his leverage with Putin. After all, India is uniquely positioned. It could use its decades of proximity to and leverage with Moscow to intervene diplomatically.
But Delhi’s balancing act is tricky, and there is the risk of it backfiring. Chatterjee Miller believes Delhi should do something now to help de-escalate the situation.
“The time to seize the initiative was prior to the invasion,” she says. But the smart move for Delhi now would be “saving its credibility as a strategic partner to the US and the Quad.”