ndia has not only refused to condemn the Russian attack on Ukraine, it also continues to purchase discounted Russian oil in large quantities.

Despite New Delhi’s ‘defiant’ stance on the Ukraine war, US President Biden had a virtual meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April. Next, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited New Delhi.

Before answering how India is able to do this, it will be helpful to take a look at India’s ties with Russia.

India chose a non-aligned path in the Cold War that ideologically and geographically divided the world into USA and USSR spheres of influence. However, the Indian case is not that simple and straightforward when it comes to maintaining neutrality in international relations.

Indeed, it rationally engaged with the American and Soviet governments since the early days of Cold War to reap monetary and military benefits. India remains, till today, one of the top recipients of IMF loans although the Fund is a Bretton Woods institution that, critics argue, is controlled by the US through its consolidated voting share. The same is true for the World Bank group.

Militarily, India developed a sort of dependency on Moscow for military modernisation to counter China, a major power in its neighbourhood with which it fought a war in 1962. It is to be remembered that India-China bilateral relations had remained warm during the 1950s due to commonality of socialist thrust in the two countries. However, the 1962 war changed that. Post-Nehru, Indian politics and foreign policy were shaped by non-ideological factors.

Pakistan is another constant challenge for India because despite its smaller size it has confronted India’s regional hegemony. It was this India-Pakistan rivalry, grounded in Partition and subsequent territorial conflict in Jammu and Kashmir that pushed both the countries to seek security alliances with either of the superpowers in the Cold War period.

Unsurprisingly, then, Pakistan became a key Cold War US ally by entering into SEATO and CENTO whereas India, despite resisting alliance politics, signed a friendship treaty with the USSR in August 1971. In popular parlance, India was regarded as pro-Soviet country, which sought economic and military assistance from Mosco even for its war with Pakistan in 1971. Its diplomatic relations remained sour with Washington, and for that matter with Beijing, till the end of the Cold War. In the post-Cold War context, India incrementally revisited its foreign policy discourse. In a changed geopolitical environment, regionally and globally where the USA had emerged as the sole superpower after the collapse of USSR after a long tussle spanning half a century India started opening up towards the US and its Western allies in terms of economic cooperation, market connectivity and technological and military assistance since India had heavily relied on Soviet/ Russian weapon systems.

From a military-strategic perspective, New Delhi thought it prudent to modernise its military capabilities through American hardware which, technologically, stands out even today.

Along with warming up its ties with the US, Indian strategic thinkers and foreign policy makers also opted to interact with their Chinese counterparts diplomatically rather than militarily. China, from its end, desired the same since it economy had started picking up with the adoption of “reform and opening up” policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 under which China pursued economic relations with the US-led Western world besides interacting with its non-Western partners from a geo-economics angle.

The non-confrontational and economy-oriented policy shifts paid off not just for India but also China, the European Union, the USA and the East Asian economies which, since the late 1960s, had envisioned economic collaboration and regional integration by establishing ASEAN. Empirically, thus, China-USA bilateral trade “soared by 28.7 percent and amounted to $755.6 billion in 2021 - maintaining a strong growth momentum and contributing 12 percent to China’s record $6 trillion foreign trade for the year despite tariffs and bruising political tensions between the world’s two largest economies… The US maintained its place as China’s third-largest trade partner following ASEAN and the European Union. China-US trade was twice China’s trade with its fourth-largest trade partner, Japan - which was 2.4 trillion yuan”, noted Global Times in January this year.

Similarly, China-India trade has grown despite the recent spat in Ladakh. The Indian Express noted in early 2022: “Despite India’s efforts to reduce dependence on imports from China amid an increased emphasis on self-reliance as well as escalating tensions along the border, bilateral trade grew 43.3 per cent in 2021 — a year that marked a record high in exports to and imports from China, according to Chinese government data… India’s imports from China rose to $97.5 billion in the calendar year 2021, up 46.1 per cent from $66.7 billion in 2020, which was impacted by Covid restrictions, as per data from the China General Administration of Customs. Imports in 2021 were up 30.3 per cent over 2019… [Moreover] India’s exports to China also grew to a record high of $28.1 billion in 2021, up 34.9 per cent from $20.9 billion in 2020. Exports to China in 2021 were 56.5 per cent higher than in 2019.”

The foregoing clearly manifests a high level of economic exchange and market connectivity among China, USA, India and other important stakeholders so that political and military tensions lose significance if seen from a holistic angle where each country’s topmost priority is to grow economically for that is assumed as the only way to not only resolve social issues but also enhance military capabilities.

Wars do not only diminish resources, skills and opportunities but also disrupt global supply chains. The ongoing war in Ukraine has just manifested that an attack on one country/ economy badly affects others regionally and globally. Russia, which perpetrated this war, has been heavily sanctioned by the US-led allies. Even China and other ASEAN members are walking cautiously in their foreign policy pronouncements not to show outright support for Russian aggression since their economic interest bind them to EU and US markets. India, quite interestingly has adopted a middle way, too. Though some EU economies are still dependent on Russian carbon resources, Russia’s long-term economic prospects would be jeopardised since EU will gradually shift to other markets, i.e., US, and solutions, i.e., renewable energy.

Last but not the least, Russia is counted as a major power with a sizeable market, abundant carbon resources, a permanent role in the UN system as well as modern military (technology). After the US, it is a major weapons seller to a lot of countries in the South, including India. The latter currently is not dependent on Russian weapons systems the way it used to be during the Cold War. Yet, India values its relations with Moscow to balance its ties with Beijing and Washington in terms of maintaining its traditional stance on staying non-aligned and highlighting the fact that it is a big market linked with global capitalism.

Lastly, since Washington is wooing New Delhi to be its key ally in the Indo-Pacific, this boosts India’s strategic confidence with regard to regional geopolitics where the latter’s role, in its own perspective, cannot be overlooked. Such strategic calculations, thus, underpin India’s foreign policy outlook in the current context where it can diplomatically support Russia on Ukraine, stay politically correct towards USA and continue to interact commercially with China despite territorial disputes.

The writer has a PhD in political science from Heidelberg University and a post-doc from UC-Berkeley. He is a DAAD, FDDI and Fulbright fellow and an associate professor at the Department of Social Sciences, Iqra University, Islamabad. He tweets @ejazbhatty