Russia-Ukraine: Their war, our worries

Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined President Joe Biden of the United States and his Japanese and Australian counterparts, Fumio Kishida and Scott Morrison, for a virtual summit of the Quad on March 3. Soon after the video-call ended, Biden posted on Twitter that he and three other leaders had discussed “Russia’s ongoing attack on Ukraine” and the “commitment of the four nations “to sovereignty and territorial integrity around the world, including in the Indo-Pacific”. The readouts issued in Canberra and Tokyo too quoted Morrison and Kishida echoing Biden in strongly condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Modi, however, underlined that the Quad should remain focused on its “core objective of promoting peace, stability and prosperity in Indo-Pacific”, thus arguing against any move that could shift the focus of the four-nation-coalition from dealing with increasing belligerence of China – be it along its disputed boundary with India in the Himalayas, or in the South China Sea and the East China Sea or the Taiwan Strait.

New Delhi resisted the pressure from Washington DC and succeeded in keeping out any direct condemnation for Russia for its invasion of Ukraine from the joint statement, which was issued after the virtual summit of the Quad. But the Biden Administration did manage to get the Quad agree on a mechanism, which would not only help the four nations coordinate responses to any humanitarian challenges in Indo-Pacific in the long-term, but would also open immediately a channel of communication among themselves as they each address and respond to the crisis in Ukraine. So, the US, with support from Japan and Australia, did succeed in widening the ambit of the Quad, despite resistance by India.

Ever since tension between Moscow and US-led West escalated over Ukraine, New Delhi has been worried over the possibility of a shift in the Biden Administration’s focus from countering China in the Indo-Pacific to dealing with the aggression of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. When External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his counterparts from Japan, Australia and the US met in Melbourne on February 11, Biden’s Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, was clearly more focussed on securing support of the Quad against Russia’s military build-up around Ukraine. Blinken also had a bilateral meeting with Jaishankar on the sideline of the conclave of the Quad Foreign Ministers. The argument he tried to put forward was that if the Quad now remained quiet on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, it would end up encouraging China to step up its military aggression further in the Indo-Pacific region.

Blinken managed to get Foreign Ministers of Australia and Japan, Marise Payne and Yoshimasa Hayashi, to condemn Russia during a joint news-conference after the conclave. Jaishankar, however, remained silent, not only because New Delhi did not want to publicly condemn Moscow, given India’s long-standing “special and privileged strategic partnership” with Russia, but also because the Modi Government was apprehensive about the imminent US-led move to shift the focus of Quad – from responding to China’s territorial aggression against India and other nations in the Indo-Pacific region to dealing with Russia.

Biden’s approach during the virtual summit of the Quad on March 4 proved that India’s apprehension was not baseless. The US officials, however, argued that the Biden Administration itself had mooted the proposal to hold the virtual summit of the Quad to send out the message to Beijing that even as the world was grappling with the consequence of Russia’s military operations into Ukraine; India, Japan, Australia and the US would continue to work together to counter the expansionist aspirations of China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Putin’s February 24 move to send troops into Ukraine has triggered a global geostrategic churn and New Delhi is of course not liking it at all. Not only has it made it difficult for India to maintain the delicate balance in its ties with Russia and the US, but may also end up offering a strategic advantage to China.

Ever since the Indian Army’s counter-deployment in response to Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s unilateral move to push the Line of Actual Control (LAC) westward started the military stand-off in eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020, the strategic convergence between India and the US has been deepening, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, with a series of joint navy drills. New Delhi did resist the pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration to turn the Quad into a NATO-like entity for the Indo-Pacific region, but later accepted the Biden Administration’s proposal to elevate the four-nation coalition to the level of the leadership. India also broad-based its cooperation in Indo-Pacific, by starting engagements with the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the European Union on the region. “It is essential that greater power and stronger capabilities lead to responsibility and restraint. This means, above all, respect for international law, territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Jaishankar said, participating in the opening session of the EU Ministerial Forum on Indo-Pacific, which was hosted by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in Paris on February 22. But with the Russian Army marching into eastern Ukraine just a couple of days later, New Delhi has reasons to anticipate that countering China’s hegemonic aspirations in the Indo-Pacific might no longer be the priority for Germany, France and the UK too.

Moscow in 2020 and 2021 did quickly act on New Delhi’s request for emergency supply of arms and ammunition to bolster India’s defence capabilities in the wake of the stand-off with China along the LAC. It also quietly mediated between New Delhi and Beijing and helped them restart stalled negotiations to resolve the stand-off. But India may now find it difficult to continue sourcing military hardware from Russia, which has come under tougher sanctions imposed by the US and other western nations in the wake of its aggression against Ukraine. Denis Alipov, Moscow’s newly-appointed envoy to New Delhi, said that Russia would deliver the S-400 missile defence systems to India on time despite new sanctions by the US. He, however, also acknowledged that the latest sanctions would hit bilateral trade.

The only way Russia can soften the impact of the western sanctions is to seek deeper economic and strategic ties with China, which will surely cause unease for India.Even if Beijing cannot make Moscow snap its decades-old defence cooperation with New Delhi, it may now have enough leverage over Russia to slow down the supply of ammunition to India.

As Biden and Putin clash over Ukraine, it may not take long for Xi Jinping’s China to take advantage and step up its aggression, not only across the Taiwan Strait and elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region, but also along its disputed boundary with India.

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