This article, which examines India’s approach to Ukraine and China, is part of an ongoing series on U.S. statecraft and the Global South developed by the Carnegie Endowment’s American Statecraft Program. For other articles in the series, click here.
With the world’s largest population and aspirations to great power status, India may be the most important of the world’s emerging powers. Its ties to Washington have never looked so strong. The White House has reconciled itself to the South Asian giant’s (long-standing) friendly relationship with Russia, likely because India has aligned itself more and more closely with the United States when it comes to China.
India’s Approach to Ukraine
Throughout the Cold War, India was a principled leader of the nonaligned movement. A cornerstone of Indian foreign policy, first articulated by former Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is that great powers should never define India’s interests or policies. India has persisted with this vision through its refusal to sacrifice its ties with Russia over the war in Ukraine. Instead, it has taken advantage of Western sanctions on Russia by purchasing cheap oil in bulk. In 2022, India went from importing almost no Russian oil to importing over 1 million barrels per day, the price of which had been depressed by the sanctions regime.1 By the end of 2022, India was importing 33 times the amount of Russian crude than it had a year before.2 (Some of these imports were then re-exported to Europe.3)
Several Western leaders were unhappy that India was indirectly financing Russia’s war, but as Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar pointed out, the West’s ability to pay higher prices for its energy was a luxury that India just doesn’t have. India is the third-largest energy consumer in the world, and most of this energy is imported.4 “I have a country that has a per capita income of two thousand dollars,” Jaishankar said, “these are not people who can afford higher energy prices.”5
This pursuit of self-interest is characteristic of New Delhi’s foreign policy. It has stayed neutral in the war in Ukraine, choosing neither to condemn Russia nor blame it for the war. It has abstained on every UN resolution related to Ukraine since March 2022—including those demanding a Russian withdrawal or condemning the war and annexation of Ukrainian territories.6
India’s dependence on Russian arms, nostalgia for the Soviet Union’s support to India, and desire to not see Russia collapse as a great power also discouraged New Delhi from alienating Moscow.
Moscow continues to be India’s largest arms supplier, even if India is gradually diversifying its sources of weapons. From 2017 to 2022, India bought more Russian weapons than any other country.7 India relies on Russia for essential components of several advanced weapons systems including its fighter aircraft, cruise missiles, submarines, and land warfare platforms. It is also now procuring Russian S-400 air defense systems, stealth frigates, and nuclear submarines, which will ensure dependence on Russian technology and maintenance in the years to come.8
Russia's share of India’s arsenal has fallen, however, as India has increased arms trade with France and the United States and invested in domestic arms production.9 Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has further prompted India to diversify its sources of weapons as Russia struggles to meet its deliveries due to its war effort and the sanctions on its semiconductor exports.10
India’s interest in preserving ties with Russia does not mean it is indifferent to the violence in Ukraine. At the G7 Summit in May 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky that India would do “everything it can” to help bring peace to Ukraine.11 A year earlier, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in September 2022, Modi gently chided Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “I know that today’s era is not the era for war.”12 New Delhi’s neutrality has made it a viable option for mediation between Russia, Ukraine, and the West.13 Brazil and Mexico’s leaders, for instance, have named Modi as a possible mediator in their peace plans.14
India may be the most important of the emerging powers sympathetic to Russia, if only because of its size and economic heft. Whatever role India may end up playing in a peace effort between Russia and Ukraine, it is almost certainly not going to join the Western anti-Russia coalition. “I would still like to see a more rules-based world,” Jaishankar told the New York Times, “but when people start pressing you in the name of a rules-based order to give up, to compromise on what are very deep interests, at that stage I’m afraid it’s important to contest that.”15
India’s “deep interest,” in this case, is to reject the West’s isolation of Russia, which New Delhi fears would push Moscow even closer to China. Over the longer term, moreover, India seeks to preserve Russia’s position as a great power, in part because it would help ensure a global multipolar order, which India views as essential for the growth of its own influence.16
India’s Approach to China
Despite its discomfort, Washington has come to terms with India’s stance on Russia, and focused instead on India’s relationship with China, where Washington and New Delhi are naturally more aligned. India cooperates increasingly with the United States on defense and considers its membership in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) with Australia, Japan, and the United States to be pivotal in its regional strategy of balancing China.
In June 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Modi for a state visit. The two leaders announced that the United States and India would co-produce jet engines for fighter aircraft, marking a historic development in technology sharing.17 India also became the first non-ally to receive armed U.S. Predator drones—a deal negotiated under former president Donald Trump’s administration.18 The two countries also signed a slew of new agreements covering strategic technology, space cooperation, and mineral supply chains.
India has long-standing strategic concerns about the potential threat that China poses to its interests. Geopolitically, China and India are the two most populous nations not only in Asia but in the world, and tensions between them have heated up in the past few years. In 2020, for example, competitive Chinese and Indian patrols entered into disputed territory along their border, triggering fighting between their militaries.
The Biden administration has meanwhile invested heavily in its partnership with New Delhi. Militarily, India leans toward the United States and engages in steadily closer defense cooperation. The American and Indian armies hold regular military exercises and defense dialogues. They share intelligence and cooperate on maritime security in the Indian Ocean region. Like the United States, India sees the Quad as an important platform for addressing regional security challenges in the Indo-Pacific.
India is also increasingly aligned with the United States on technology development. The Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), launched in May 2022, provides a framework for Washington and New Delhi to cooperate on the development of technological systems, including semiconductors, telecommunications technology, and artificial intelligence. India has also become a closer trade partner to the West than to China. In 2019 it exited negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and is now engaged in several pillars of the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). India stands to benefit from plans to “de-risk” from Chinese supply chains if it can realize its potential as a manufacturing powerhouse and build out value chains that can rival China’s.19
U.S.-India cooperation has its limits, however. India is sometimes seen as “the Quad’s weakest link” because of its hesitance to fully commit to collective security cooperation. As the only Quad member that shares a border with China, India is wary of focusing the group too heavily on security and tends to prefer the Quad’s efforts on humanitarian aid, global health, new technological development, and maritime awareness.20 India has also resisted steps toward deep interoperability with U.S. military forces, out of a concern that these would erode its autonomy.21
Indian leaders see defense cooperation with the United States as a means of acquiring better technology and a strong defense industrial base. These it wants so it can defend itself, not so that it can assist Washington against China. If China invaded Taiwan, India almost certainly would not join the United States in defending Taiwan with military force.22
Moreover, India’s security concerns about China have not precluded it from cooperating with China through BRICS and the SCO — two groups India values for global agenda-setting. India will continue to identify as the “voice of the Global South” and advocate for a more inclusive international system in which developing countries have more representation in shaping the international order.23
India is increasingly aligned with the United States on China, but it is not squarely in Washington’s camp. It proudly notes that it is in its own camp. India’s perspective on U.S.-China strategic competition was well articulated by Jaishankar, who said, “What I would not like to be defined as is standing against something or somebody, because that diminishes me. That makes it out as though some other people are the center of the world and I’m only there to be for them or against them.”24
Notes
1 Rakesh Sharma, "India's Oil Imports From Russia Climb to New Peak as Limit Nears," Bloomberg, July 2, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-03/india-s-oil-imports-from-russia-climb-to-new-peak-as-limit-nears?sref=QmOxnLFz.
2Rakesh Sharma, “India Now Buying 33 Times More Russian Oil Than a Year Earlier,” Bloomberg, January 16, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-16/india-now-buying-33-times-more-russian-oil-than-a-year-earlier?sref=QmOxnLFz.
3 Mohi Narayan and Idhi Verma, “Fuels from Russian Oil Gets Backdoor Entry Into Europe Via India,” Reuters, April 5, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/fuels-russian-oil-gets-backdoor-entry-into-europe-via-india-2023-04-05/.
4 “India Energy Outlook 2021,” International Energy Agency, February 2021, https://www.iea.org/reports/india-energy-outlook-2021.
5“India Has Never Been Defensive About Stand on Buying Russian Oil: S. Jaishankar in Thailand,” The Hindu, August 17, 2022, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-has-never-been-defensive-about-stand-on-buying-russian-oil-s-jaishankar-in-thailand/article65778019.ece.
6 “Ukraine War: India Abstains From UN Vote on Russian Invasion,” BBC, February 24, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64753820.
7 “Russian Arms Supplies to India Worth $13 Bln in Past 5 Years – News Agencies,” Reuters, February 13, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-arms-supplies-india-worth-13-bln-past-5-years-news-agencies-2023-02-13/.
8 “Russia Supplying S-400 Air Defense Systems to India on Schedule – Defence Official,” Reuters, August 14, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-supplying-s-400-air-defence-systems-india-schedule-defence-official-2023-08-14/ ; Sameer Lalwani, “Will India Ditch Russia?” Foreign Affairs, January 24, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/will-india-ditch-russia.
9 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, "Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2022," March 2023, https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2023-03/2303_at_fact_sheet_2022_v2.pdf.
10 Krishn Kaushik, “Russia Cannot Meet Arms Delivery Commitments Because of War, Indian Air Force Says,” Reuters, March 23, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/india/russia-cannot-meet-arms-delivery-commitments-because-war-indian-air-force-says-2023-03-23/.
11 Happymon Jacob, “Can India Bring Russia and Ukraine to the Table?,” Foreign Affairs, August 2, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/can-india-bring-russia-and-ukraine-table.
12 Stuart Lau and Saim Saeed, “India’s Modi Tells Putin: This is ‘Not the Era for War,’” Politico EU, September 16, 2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/narendra-modi-tells-vladimir-putin-war-has-no-place-in-todays-era /.
13 Derek Grossman, “India Can Bridge the U.S.-Russia Divide Over Ukraine,” RAND Corporation, March 20, 2023, https://www.rand.org/blog/2023/03/india-can-bridge-the-us-russia-divide-over-ukraine.html.
14 Pedro Rafael Vllela, “Lula Suggests Group of Nations to Negotiate Peace for Ukraine, Russia,” Agencia Brasil, January 31, 2023, https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/internacional/noticia/2023-01/lula-suggests-group-nations-negotiate-peace-ukraine-russia; “At UN, Mexico Proposes a High-Level Diplomatic Delegation to Mediate Between Russia and Ukraine,” UN News, September 22, 2022, https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1127731.
15 Roger Cohen, “Russia’s War Could Make It India’s World,” New York Times, December 31, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/world/asia/india-ukraine-russia.html.
16 “Remarks By External Affairs Minister, Dr. S. Jaishankar at the India-Russia Business Dialogue,” Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs, April 17, 2023, https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/36496.
17 “Joint Statement From India and the United States,” White House, September 8, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/09/08/joint-statement-from-india-and-the-united-states/#:~:text=Defence%20Acceleration%20Ecosystem%20(INDUS%2DX,to%20address%20shared%20security%20challenges.
18 Rajesh Roy, “India Moves Closer to Approving Purchase of Armed Drones From the U.S.,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-moves-closer-to-approving-purchase-of-armed-drones-from-the-u-s-de1910b3.
19 Vikram Barhat, “From Apple to Boeing, India is Being Put to the Test as China Manufacturing Alternative,” CNBC, March 23, 2023, https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/12/from-apple-to-boeing-india-is-being-put-to-the-test-as-the-new-china.html; Rajat Dhawan and Suvojoy Sengupta, “A New Growth Formula for Manufacturing in India,” McKinsey, October 30, 2020, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/industrials-and-electronics/our-insights/a-new-growth-formula-for-manufacturing-in-india.
20 Aditi Malhotra, “Engagement, not Entanglement: India’s Relationship with the Quad,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, May 1, 2023, https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2023/05/01/engagement-not-entanglement-indias-relationship-with-the-quad/.
21 Ashley Tellis, "America's Bad Bet on India," Foreign Affairs, May 1, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/americas-bad-bet-india-modi.
22 Tellis, "America's Bad Bet on India"; Michael K. Mazarr et al, “U,S. Major Combat Operations in the Indo-Pacific: Partner and Ally Views,” RAND Corporation, 2023, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA967-2.html, vi.
23 “Voice of Global South Summit 2023,” Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs, https://mea.gov.in/voice-of-global-summit.htm.
24 “Allowing Russia to Attack Ukraine with Impunity Would be Message to ‘Would Be’ Aggressors: Blinken,” The Print, March 3, 2023, https://theprint.in/india/allowing-russia-to-attack-ukraine-with-impunity-would-be-message-to-would-be-aggressors-blinken/1415712/.