India: Looking to Help Frame a New Global Balance

For states used to the comfort of strict alliances and alignments, today’s rapidly transforming world
order represents a source of concern and often also existential threat. The past of reassuring predictability has been replaced with the constant uncertainty of fluidity. This is something that India sees as a challenge, but also as an opportunity to hone its role as a bridging power and to help the world find a new balance.

The global pandemic and RussiaUkraine war have had a dual structural impact that accelerated the systemic transition slowly evolving since the 2008 financial crisis. At home, countries are witnessing the erosion of institutional resilience and deepening socio-economic inequalities as seen in Sri Lanka’s financial collapse and in Iran’s political unrest. And abroad, countries have reduced their investment in cooperative habits and institutions, intensified inflationary competition for scarce sources and thus continued to deeper geostrategic fault lines. Both domestic politics and strategic considerations explain the growing turn to protectionism, decoupling, and weaponizing interdependence, all symptoms of a
system that lacks maintenance and risks breaking apart.

This is particularly apparent in Asia, where China’s formidable rise has unsettled the balance of power amidst growing rivalry. The SinoAmerican partnership that allowed the continent to develop and progress in peace for almost five decades has, leading to new tensions around old issues, from the nuclear balance in Northeast Asia, to the future of Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the weaponization of trade.

For India all these challenges and risks are real, but the current fog of systemic uncertainty is neither new nor necessarily a source of strategic anxiety. History shows how India’s policy of non-alignment has often been a useful navigational device to adapt to change, craft a new balance, and preserve the country’s cherished strategic autonomy. For example, after the 1960s, India gravitated to the Soviet Union in response to the United States’ growing alignment with China and Pakistan. And after 1991, with the demise of the Soviet Union and a severe balance of payment crisis, the same proudly non-aligned and socialist India once again adapted to the new world order by reforming its economy, deepening engagement with the United States, and pursuing rapprochement with China.

Today’s turbulence poses a similar test to India’s ambition to remain a self-reliant, independent pole in the changing world order. Yet while other countries may see the changing regional context as a challenge, New Delhi’s decision makers tend to perceive the rapidly evolving environment more optimistically, as an opportunity. This overall positive outlook is premised on the understanding that in times of global volatility, India’s bridging power assumes indispensable utility. The idea of India as a swing state goes back to the 1950s, when Prime Minister Nehru invested in the nonalignment movement to push the entre of geopolitical gravity towards the post-colonial East and South. This idea of India as a structural bridge should not be equated with policy abstention or neutrality, nor confused as a reflection of a naïve and ideological vision. As the former Singaporean diplomat Bilahari Kausikan recently noted, even when India adopts a passive posture of inaction, it matters through its “sheer existence” for the rest of the continent. Especially in Asia, India is a pivotal player with geographic, demographic, military, and economic attributes that are bound to shape the balance of power and affect the rivalry calculations of both the United States and China.

This Indian self-perception shapes its pragmatic and even positive approach to the growing state of disorder. It permeates what India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar identifies as “strategies for an uncertain world” in his recent book describing the “India way” to international politics. As with India’s current security outlook, the book is pragmatically conscious about the risks of transition but also pregnant with options and possibilities to maximise regional influence and pursue a new global balance. This bridging posture was most recently in full display at the G20 summit in Bali, where India played a crucial backstage role to close policy gaps and produce a consensual statement.

Challenges

There is rarely a calm period in India’s strategic environment, but the last two years have been particularly challenging. Most importantly, relations with China have witnessed a structural rupture
after decades of gradual convergence since the 1962 war. The 2020 military confrontation between the two neighbours in the Himalayas, the first deadly one in 45 years, marked an irreversible downturn. While the conflict was local, focused on the territorial dispute, it had major economic and political repercussions, freezing the bilateral relationship at almost all levels. Beijing is keen to return to the status quo and ormalise despite holding on to newly acquired territory, while New Delhi is adamant about the need for a hard reset. For the first time in several decades, there is no political capital left in New Delhi to invest in engaging and trusting China.

The Sino-American partnership that allowed [Asia] to develop and progress in peace for almost five decades has collapsed …

Similarly, an increasingly assertive China has also been encroaching on India’s traditional sphere of influence in South Asia. Whether it is the formation of coalition governments in Nepal, military modernisation in Bangladesh, or the economic future of Sri Lanka, China is now a deeply entrenched player across the region, often at the expense of Indian interests. The recent visit of a Chinese spy ship to Sri Lanka’s infamous port of Hambantota, despite India’s vocal opposition, reflects how Beijing is now able to challenge India’s maritime security interests in its own subcontinental periphery.

Military rule and continued conflict in Myanmar have also complicated India’s connectivity plans to the East, including new road, rail, and shipping links with the ASEAN region. Indian investments have
suffered from sanctions targeting the praetorian regime even while China has consolidated its land
access to the Bay of Bengal, further reducing its maritime reliance on the Malacca Straits.

To the West, backchannel talks with Pakistan have achieved no progress since the 2021 cease-fire.
India remains a concerned spectato to Pakistan’s cyclical civil-military tensions, its deteriorating financial health and its rising security and economic reliance on China. India’s regional security environment has also suffered a setback with the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and a medley of terrorist groups that Pakistan has often played as proxies to target Indian interests.

At the global level, Russia’s Ukraine invasion has posed the toughest test to India. It is unlikely that there is any Indian decision-maker left under the illusion that Russia will reverse its inevitable structural decline. But Moscow is still seen as a structural pole that India cannot afford to ignore or upset, which explains New Delhi’s subdued reaction to the invasion and abstentions at the United Nations (UN).

Despite American and European pressures, India has stuck to its position for two different sets of
reasons. Tangible tactical interests include Russia’s predominant role as a reliable defence partner, energy requirements, and Moscow’s veto power at the UN Security Council. More abstract strategic and signalling interests include India’s efforts to reduce Russia’s growing dependenceon China and New Delhi’s intent to portray itself diplomatically as an independent actor, able to withstand American pressure and lead the silent majority of “third block” countries that have refused to take sides, several of which are to be found in Asia and Africa.

Opportunities

The evolving regional security outlook brings a myriad of challenges, but India’s eye is also set on seeing the horizon of opportunities that this brings. In New Delhi’s perspective, China’s growing centrality and influence has paradoxically triggered a new balancing behaviour by states across the region and beyond. For example, after an initial enthusiasm with the Belt and Road Initiative whose investments have now largely dried up, several South and Southeast Asian countries are now seeking an alternative in India, whether by intensifying trade relations or pushing for closer defence cooperation. The Indian Navy has been in high demand for joint exercises and much of Asia has still not given up hope on India eventually joining RCEP or developing alternative trade partnerships such as the one it recently signed with
Australia.

The Quad has been another preferred instrument for India to respond to a growing demand from countries seeking to diversify their relations and reduce their strategic dependence on China. Together with the United States, Japan and Australia, India has played a leading role in reviving the Quad since 2017 despite China’s vocal opposition. Beijing is particularly worried about India’s participation because it undermines its narrative about the Quad as an “Asian NATO” anchored in a security treaty relationship lead by the United States. China’s concerns were most recently on display when its top diplomat in Dhaka warned Bangladesh against engaging the Quad in any way.

India has been playing a silent but important role in pushing Brussels…and other European capitals, to recognise that the future global balance of power hinges on what
happens in Asia.

Unperturbed by such admonitions and pressures, India has been playing an important role in recasting the Quad in a more civilian avatar, moderating its initial emphasis as a military and defence instrument. New Delhi is actively contributing to the Quad’s agenda for coordinated provision of public goods in Asia, including on vaccine production and distribution, resilient supply chains, open telecom architectures, maritime domain awareness and infrastructure financing.

India has also been pursuing the opportunity of trilateral engagements with other middle powers in Asia.This includes a growing collaboration on transportation infrastructure with Japan in the Bay of Bengal region, the strategic heart of the Indo-Pacific. New Delhi and Tokyo have been topping up their maritime security convergence with a growing geoeconomic agenda for a “free and open” Indo-Pacific, from sea lines of communication to exploring new defence industrial partnerships.

After a temporary setback due to the AUKUS deal, the France-IndiaAustralia trilateral is also back on
track. This initiative further mirrors New Delhi’s openness to think out of its traditionally limited menu of alignment options. The three countries are now working in tandem, including by dividing labour towards coordinated naval patrols and capacity building programs for the Indian Ocean littoral and small island states. On its own, India is continuing to extend its out of area power projection capabilities, including through the induction of a new aircraft carrier, a defence pact with the Maldives, and upgrading its military installations on the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.

India’s front footedness has also been manifest in its ability to accelerate the European Union’s Indo-Pacific reorientation. While the RussiaUkraine war has momentarily diverted much of Europe’s political attention away from Asia, India has been playing a silent but important role in pushing Brussels, as well as Berlin and other European capitals, to recognise that the future global balance of power hinges on what happens in Asia. New Delhi has been positioning itself as the coordinating actor of a constellation of middle powers, a first among equals that share a common interest not to let China become a hegemonic power.

Finally, while India remains concerned about policy paralysis and continued institutional inequalities
at the United Nations, it has also positively embraced alternative agendas to foster multilateralism and cooperation. Two of its recent institutional innovations include the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure: the United States, Japan, and Bangladesh are members of both, but China is conspicuously absent. India’s G20 Presidency in 2023 is expected to further signal India’s balancing act, with a developmental focus on inclusive financial, digital, health, and climate governance solutions.

While optimism is not a policy, it permeates India’s outlook of the rapidly changing security environment and explains the country’s proactive posture. New Delhi faces significant challenges but it also recognises that this is the time to deploy its bridging power between different actors to craft a new balance. Its ability to do so will hinge on its ability to execute important military and economic reforms at home and its capacity to leverage these new capabilities abroad.