A moment of reckoning

Sandeep Dikshit

THIS is a unique and very challenging moment in global geopolitics. India is being forced into foreign policy adjustments to respond to the dynamics unleashed by the US in the three global vectors of global security, trade and energy. And the middle-income level countries in Asia who share similar dependencies and fears will be carefully watching India’s recalibration of its ties with Iran, Russia and China on the one hand, the US on the other and the European Union somewhere in the middle.

From Indonesia to the Philippines, most of the vibrant middle-weights whom India has been wooing to carve its own corner of influence in these countries as a counterbalance to China and to improve its trade prospects are bound to be affected by the triple US whammy.

Nearly three decades after the end of the Cold War, most of the ASEAN countries and India have been careful about not putting all their strategic eggs in one superpower’s basket. The US trade wars, its insistence to stop importing oil from Iran and a law that frowns on arms trade with Russia are the three elements that could persuade these countries to revamp their foreign policy approach altogether or hoist the petard of insubordination against the US. Clearly the current situation does not lend itself to such easy binaries.

Beijing, following 10 hours of conversation between PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, has been a fountain of reasonableness and conciliation. Yet India cannot afford to stop looking at the US as a primary source to strengthen its security hand against China. However, India like Indonesia, Malaysia and several other countries also cannot wean itself off Russian arms despite a US law that promises to penalise such commerce.

 Energy too requires much thought and calibration after the US enjoined other nations to cut off dependence on Iranian oil. Both Indonesia and Malaysia have plans to buy Iranian oil or oilfields and even close US allies South Korea and Japan find themselves in a pickle. India faces a similar Hobson’s choice but on a much large scale: Tehran may turn lukewarm or even hostile to India’s ongoing development of an Iranian port next-door to Pakistan’s with communication links snaking into Afghanistan and Central Asia. South Block considers this route to be a strategic game-changer as it gives access to Afghanistan without touching Pakistani territory. But it is bound to be shifted into the slow lane, just like it was five years back when the US had turned the screws on Iran.

In trade too, the “Asian Tigers” as also India have begun to experience air pockets. India, among other countries, have opted to pick up the gauntlet after the US put them in their cross-sights. But realising their weak hand, the date of retaliation has been pushed back to allow negotiators to get to work. Trump has turned around the tense atmosphere in East Asia by reaching out to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un but the knots he has put in a country’s sovereign right to choose its sources of defence equipment and energy have increased the stress levels in the wider region.

The postponement of the first-ever Indo-US 2+2 talks of foreign and defence ministers may be unrelated to this turbulence. But India is bound to approach the dialogue, whenever it takes place, with a great deal of circumspection. The security-heavy agenda for the meeting translates into a win-win situation only for the US. Indian diplomacy needs to reload the agenda to suit its national interests as well. After Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu failed to make the Americans change their mind over a mini-trade war with India, it becomes all the more important to ensure that immediate concerns about oil and security are loaded on to the Indo-US list of immediate concerns.

This is the time when diplomats need to lose the touch of starch about them as India’s resoluteness and creativity will be on examination. The cues taken by India are bound to be studied with great interest and followed by other countries that are also at the receiving end of American attention. India needs to revive its earlier plan to create a sovereign insurance entity with Iran also providing some coverage to carry on with oil trade after Western insurance companies begin withdrawing before the November 4 deadline. It also must shift over to the rupee trade; India will not be alone because China and the European Union have already started paying for Iranian crude in their currencies.

India also needs to play hardball on 2+2 talks; it does need several pieces of military hardware from the US , but it also requires to maintain its military relationship with Russia, especially after its President Vladimir Putin’s reassuring words about bilateral ties against the backdrop of a developing Moscow-Islamabad axis.  

“Both India and Russia have a multitude of relations, contacts in the world, interests and we treat with respect all of India’s interests and we don’t think that if we support special relations with India, then India should limit itself in contacts with some other partners. This is simply absurd. The Indian leadership has the same attitude to the development of Russia’s relations with partners throughout the world wherever it may be,” Putin observed.

India under Modi has a second shot at assuming a prominent position in the global constellation of nation states after the flirtation with a muscular foreign policy failed to impress China or block its expansion of influence in a string of countries. The Maldives, Mongolia and Nepal was been special foreign policy disasters which may not have gone unnoticed in the neighbourhood.

The elite of all the middle powers are too Western in their outlook and their economic and security policies too intermeshed with the US to forsake its company for the doubtful joy of casting their lot entirely with China and Russia. Any attempt to play to the gallery will have nominal rhetorical value. India needs to show the way in managing the divergences with China, Russia and US, as also reaping the benefits of the relationship. This is a tough task but this is what big country diplomacy is all about.

[email protected]