Opinion Old friends,different times

A decade ago,disappointed by the meagre results from Boris Yeltsin’s attempts to integrate Russia with the West through the 1990s — the immediate aftermath of the Cold War — a new generation of Russian leaders led by Vladimir Putin sought to reaffirm Moscow’s standing as a great power.

This did not mean Putin wanted a renewed confrontation with the US. Hardly. Putin offered unconditional cooperation to the US in the wake of 9/11,and President George W. Bush declared that he could do business with Putin.

Throughout this decade,Russia focused on the creation of a “multipolar world” that would limit America’s “hyperpower”. This in turn set the stage for Russia’s major strategic initiative of the current decade — the institutionalisation of the so-called strategic triangle with China and India,and drawing in other emerging powers such as Brazil.

Russia also extended support to China’s initiative to build the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Both Moscow and Beijing had a common interest in preventing the United States from meddling too much in Central Asia,which abuts Russia’s soft underbelly and China’s volatile western flank.

This framework,of course,is coming apart amidst the shifting balance among Washington,Beijing and Moscow. As he copes with the challenges of a rare financial crisis at home and the unfinished costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,Ameican President Barack Obama has chosen to “reset” ties with Russia and reach out to China.

Delhi must expect that Putin and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev would want to take full advantage of Obama’s offer. At the same time Moscow has also reasons to be wary about the growing pressures on Washington to accommodate Beijing.

Like India,Russia has no interest in seeing a Sino-American condominium over Asia. Obama’s visit to Beijing last month has generated as much anxiety in Moscow as it has in Delhi. It has revealed the new imperatives for India and Russia to draw together amidst the new flux in great power relations.

It might be worth recalling that it was Sino-US rapprochement in 1971 that pushed India towards a de facto alliance with the Soviet Union. Unlike in the 1970s,Delhi and Moscow should have no desire to direct their partnership against either Washington or Beijing. After all,Russia and America are recrafting their relationship; and Moscow’s ties with Beijing are becoming thicker than Indo-Russian relations.

Meanwhile,India’s own fledgling strategic partnership with America has been reaffirmed during Dr Singh’s visit to Washington last month; and for all the difficulties in Delhi’s ties with Beijing,there is no way of ignoring the importance of a peaceful Sino-Indian relationship.

What Dr Singh and his Russian interlocutors are looking at is a new Eurasian equilibrium,in which Delhi’s ties with Moscow do not remain the weakest link. At the core of any attempt to restructure the Indo-Russian relationship must be the recognition of the fact that a multipolar world is already at hand — thanks to the rise of China and the weakening of American power.

As Delhi and Moscow recognise that the creation of a multipolar Asia is as important as the construction of a multipolar world,an agenda of cooperative bilateral action presents itself. The following is an illustrative list of what India and Russia can do together in the coming years. 

India’s growing hunger for natural resources and Russia’s need to modernise its massive mineral sector provides a synergy that needs to be fully developed. Indian capital,managerial talent and manpower can,for example,help Russia develop its resource-rich far eastern regions.

India and Russia could think big about developing bilateral industrial collaboration between Russian defence firms and the Indian private sector that has now ventured into arms manufacture.

Delhi and Moscow can both learn from Beijing which has become a major exporter of arms in Asia,Middle East and Africa and is in a position to tilt the military balance of power in many sub-regions of the world.

On the nuclear front too India and Russia must focus on the objective of jointly offering the full spectrum of nuclear products and services to the rapidly expanding global market for atomic electricity generation.

Even more important is the need for Indo-Russian collaboration in advanced atomic science and technology — from nuclear fusion to high energy lasers — that contributes to their own national security as well increases their contribution to the promotion of global arms control and non-proliferation.

Finally,India and Russia must consider very visible and bold high technology ventures that will capture the spirit of new possibilities between the two countries. The establishment of a joint centre for advanced space research in India could be one way of going about it.

Such a facility could focus on a range of new opportunities in outer space — from colonising the moon to the development of cheaper launch technologies,from developing small nuclear reactors for space travel to development of new legal principles to govern growing human activity in the heavens,and from training Indian astronauts to developing space-based solar power.

The writer is Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress,Washington,DC

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