This blog provides discussion highlights for Sunday IR Cafe #68. Conducted on 28th January 2024, the discussion covered Russia-Ukraine War, India, and US Grand Strategy: Punishing or Leveraging Neutrality?
Core Arguments:
- India’s refusal to take sides in the Ukraine war has led to a debate in the US on the utility of bilateral ties. The patience school in the debate urges the US to keep engaging with India as the bigger prize lurks in the Indo-Pacific. The punishment school argues for the US to downside its expectations of what India can do for it.
- Building upon the patience argument, Thakkar argues for the US to leverage India’s independent posturing to its benefit in several arenas. Such an approach relies on what India has to offer to the US instead of what the US should ask of India. Leveraging India would also imply the US acceptance of India’s unwillingess to be an alliance partner and looking for beneficial avenues.
- The US stands to benefit from India’s independent foreign policy credentials in two ways. First, India’s size and autonomy may come in handy in the provision of global public goods, especially in crises and shock moments. Second, in cases of countries with whom the US holds limited sway, India’s bilateral ties might temper their inclination to rely completely on China which will be detrimental to the US national interest.
Discussion:
- The paper often refers to India’s conduct in the Ukraine war as a neutral act. The term may be an accurate signifier in the narrow sense of India refusing to pick one side clearly in the conflict. But, broadly, a more robust definition of the term should preclude using it to describe India’s position. As seen in the cases of erstwhile Sweden and Finland as well as Switzerland etc, neutrality as a concept involves a pre-stated, permanent commitment to not taking sides in military conflicts and alliance politics with legalistic implications. Such a neutralist position might or might not be in consonance with a nation’s interest defined in realist terms. India’s conduct, on the other hand, is driven by a clear-eyed sense of its national interest. India’s stated policy of non-alignment or strategic autonomy is an accurate descriptor as it does not preclude the possibility of India engaging with or taking sides with one party if it suits India’s national interests. India’s diplomatic posturing on the Russia-Ukraine war also is not a policy of equidistance. India has repeatedly asked for respecting the principles of the UN charter, peaceful resolution of disputes, and respect for sovereignty and territory integrity. Such a posturing should be read as a condemnation of Russia for its territorial aggression and violation of sovereignty without explicitly naming it. India’s refusal to condemn Russia explicitly is also based on a concrete calculus of its national interest and dependence on the latter. India also takes sides in the Indo-Pacific theatre against the Chinese threat, though there is no perfect congruence with its partners. But then alliance partners also differ on many crucial details.
- The economic rise of India has given it leeway in its conduct of foreign policy. But, at least two of the four pillars that undergird its autonomous foreign policy posture are not that robust. The potential attraction of its sizeable market for Western companies is dimmed by the relatively low per capita income as well as consumer purchasing power. It also risks frittering away the much-vaunted demographic dividend due to the high unemployment rate and inability to generate sufficient good quality jobs. One could, however, argue that economic dynamism need not be the prerequisite for running an autonomous foreign policy if it’s seen as an end in itself. India’s non-aligned foreign policy was conceived from a far lower income base, and North Korea has combined an autarkic economy with an autonomous foreign policy.
- India’s aspiration to act as a regional public goods provider is admirable in moralist, prudential, and order maintenance terms. The HADR missions, maintenance of SLoCs, vaccine diplomacy, IndiaStack for export, and climate diplomacy initiatives increasingly show India as an active stakeholder in the rules-based international order and an astute manager of the constituency in the Global South. However, we should also be mindful of not overestimating India’s global role while overlooking our capability deficit. In the domain of non-traditional security itself, India’s vaccine aid was puny compared to the US and China and it had to halt vaccine supply in the wake of the devastating second wave of COVID-19. It also suspended grain exports in order to stabilize domestic farm prices. Budgetary constraints, delayed naval modernization, pressing security constraints in terms of growing Chinese naval power, and continental bias in the grand strategy can potentially limit the Indian Navy’s expeditionary capability. India’s role as a net security provider in the Indian Ocean region, in turn, is contingent upon its power projection ability.
- While India’s fence-sitting diplomacy, nursing of the Global South constituency, and vigorous defense of its position have seemingly raised its global profile in narrative terms, the underlying capability deficit that is ultimately supposed to undergird India’s standing warrants a clear-headed reality check. India’s unwillingness to take sides in others’ conflict might also potentially come back to bite it in case of a security stand-off or crisis, as others would be reluctant to back India.
- Thakkar’s prescription for the US to leverage India’s independent posturing as an asset builds on the patient school’s arguemt to advance the case for closer India-US relations. His argument of leveraging India’s neutrality in the US grand strategy is an eminently reasonable position from the Indian mandarins’ perspective. Such an approach would allow India to curry favor with the US’ antagonists while using the US to help meet its security needs. But, we also need to ask whether it’s a sound strategy from the US perspective. Specifically, Washington has to weigh the utility to the US of India’s engagement with its rivals against the detrimental impact on its national interest of India propping up its adversaries. In concrete terms, India’s courting of Russia and Iran might serve as a check on them completely embracing China, but it might also frustrate US sanctions and other coercive measures against the two. It then becomes a matter of calculation: does the benefit to the US of India’s leverage outweigh the detrimental impact of India’s independent posturing in obstructing the US national security goals? If the Goldilocks policy space for the leveraging strategy is less than anticipated, it might end up being a case of the US’ sub-optimal, if not bad, bet on India. Relatedly, it’s worth anticipating the situation in which India, as an independent actor, might not be willing to use its leverage to get the US a better deal with a third actor, plausibly in a scenario involving divergent India-US interests.
- PM Modi’s vigorous foreign travels and EAM Jaishankar’s proactive handling of India’s foreign policy have led to a sense of a break from the past in terms of India’s role in the order building and maintenance projects. Thakkar’s paper also alludes to a break with the past passivity. Such a reading of India’s engagement with the international order, however, needs to be put in the historical context. Despite operating from a lower material base, Nehru’s India played a prominent role as the peacemaker (Korea, Indochina, Congo conflicts), the voice of the Global South, and the upholder of an internationalist agenda (an egalitarian UN and nuclear disarmament). Despite being beset by economic stagnation, recent border wars, and regional security challenges, Indira Gandhi espoused the cause of developing countries at the Stockholm Conference. Probably, it was from the late 1960s/ early 1970s onwards that India’s engagement with the international order declined or became ineffectual.
- To the extent that a Trump presidency remains a possibility, it’s worthwhile to engage in a thought exercise outlining its implications for the US-India relationship. In the context of this paper, a cautiously optimistic case can be made for the increased utility of India’s independent posturing for the Trump administration. Predicated on the assumption that Trump would like to get out of Ukraine and cut a deal with Russia to handle China more aggressively, Washington could leverage India’s close contact with Russia for communication and trust buildup in such a scenario. Although, telling Russia to distance itself from China might be a big ask.
(Discussion Transcript and Editing by Sanjeet Kashyap)