“If I had not come to Russia, life’s pilgrimage would have remained incomplete”, wrote Rabindranath Tagore in Letters from Russia. In the context of modern day India-Russia relations, these sentiments are an abiding testimony to the cultural bonding between India and Russia which, more than six and a half decades later, remain the backbone of their strong strategic partnership.
However, though India and Russia are special and privileged strategic partners, trade and investment relations are weak. Now with momentum building towards an Indo-Russian bilateral high-level summit meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the two countries have an opportunity for course correction.
Putin has signalled areas of convergence between India and Russia which should serve as the template for building cooperation: first, the common stakes in the rise of a multi-polar world structure; second, the fight against religious extremism and terrorism; third, economic cooperation in areas including in defence and energy; and fourth, common stakes in shaping regional and international affairs.
For India, relations with Russia remain the most decisive and strategic of partnerships, and India views Russia as pivotal in its foreign policy calculus, given India’s stakes in the region with regard to energy security, expansion of trade and commercial prospects.
Russia, as the leading force behind the increasingly integrating Eurasian economic space, is crucial to India’s plans to include Kazakhstan and Belarus in a proposed economic pact with Russia that would provide India access to a wider market in the region.
Bilateral trade has struggled to cross the $10 billion mark with the two-way exchange of goods in 2012 touching the $7 billion mark. Russia’s decision to lift the ban on import of rice, rice cereals and peanuts from India has no doubt come in timely to boost exports.
Exports in pharmaceuticals can benefit Russia in terms of quality and cost-effectiveness of the generic medicines.
Indian pharmaceutical companies have woken up to engage themselves with Russian partners under Russia’s Pharma-2020 programme. This is a welcome development. The diamond industry offers scope for economic cooperation to move to a new pitch.
Investment is another area that is not in sync with the quality of India-Russia ties. India and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding to promote direct investment which envisages investments up to $2 billion in bilateral projects or companies, privatisation and other opportunities, but there is little to show on the ground.
For Russians there are immense investment avenues available in India which they would do well to explore as in the upcoming industrial townships under the National Manufacturing Policy. India has invited Russian investment in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project, a corridor of opportunities for foreign investors.
The other vital area that calls for exploration is IT and ITeS. India has sought details from Russians on their IT innovation policy.
There is enough fire in the current relationship between India and Russia to reignite the magic of the past. What is needed is the urge on both sides to navigate the challenges. As the cliché goes, when there is a will, there is a way!
For the Indian strategic community, the United States and China are the two dominant forces in foreign policy. Of the major bilateral visits this year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Russia was relatively understated. Yet both from a global and regional security perspective, the Russia factor can no longer be ignored.
Russia and world order
The Syrian crisis has been a turning point. Most observers have been surprised at the resilience of Russia's Syria policy. Many expected Moscow to ultimately buckle in the face of a Western onslaught. Yet, nimble diplomacy and a simultaneous maritime buildup in the eastern Mediterranean were able to steer the evolution of the crisis.
In September, the Russian Navy stated its Mediterranean deployments "can have a serious impact on the current military situation" around Syria. To be sure, the Obama administration did not appear inclined towards taking part in an escalatory game that could have spilled over onto its regional allies and undermined America's regional position. Diplomacy became logical and the Russians persuaded the Syrians to concede to international oversight of their chemical weapons in return for security and sovereignty.
At a larger level, this is the restoration of a global order regulated by Westphalian norms with the UN Charter as the fulcrum of international relations that makes this geopolitical event more important. An October 21 India-Russia joint statement reaffirmed these principles.
Countering radicalism
The other convergence between Moscow and Delhi that found expression in their joint statement is a similar position on radical ideologies. Both states continue to confront the spillover effects of radical ideologies that are sustained outside Indian and Russian frontiers.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin recently remarked, "Some political forces use Islam, the radical currents within it ... to weaken our state and create conflicts on Russian soil that can be managed from abroad."
The prospect of a failing and contested Afghanistan suggests a replay of recent history. During the 1990s, India and Russia along with Iran closely cooperated in shoring up the Northern Alliance as a bulwark against the Pakistan-sponsored Taliban. After 2001, India adapted its Afghanistan policy by explicitly supporting the Western intervention in the hope that this would transform South Asia's geopolitical problems.
The Western strategy, however, could never overcome its internal contradictions: supporting an Afghan state-building effort, and, simultaneously relying on the Pakistani Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence, a covert sponsor of the Taliban, to pursue a counter-insurgency campaign across the Durand Line. The conflict of interests proved insurmountable, and, Afghanistan and its neighbors are bearing the consequences.
Russia has begun strengthening the Central Asia-Afghan frontier for precisely such a scenario. Russia has decided to double its air deployments in Kyrgyzstan to 20 Sukhoi jets even as the US is shutting down its only logistical base in Central Asia in nearby Manas, Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan, which hosts 7,000 Russian troops, has extended Russia's military presence until 2042.
Contrary to popular perception, it is the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian led-military alliance that includes post-Soviet states, and not the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that is the principal security framework for Central Asia. For India to potentially assume any forward operational presence to secure its Afghan investments there must be bilateral regional entente with Russia and, by extension, an arrangement with the CSTO.
The main constraints on an expanded SCO stabilizing Afghanistan is that Russian and Indian threat perceptions do not converge with China on the question of the Taliban's rehabilitation in Afghanistan. Arguably, China could adjust to a Taliban-Pakistan Army sphere of influence in southern Afghanistan to secure China's Uyghur problem and Beijing's economic investments in Afghanistan.
Russia's eastern 'pivot'
Dmitry Trenin, a Russian analyst, recently observed that Russian foreign policy is likely to continue "a geopolitical shift toward Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific Region" and a "further distancing from the US and Europe". Another scholar, Igor Okunev, argues that Russia is "embarking on a pragmatic and sharp policy in the spirit of Realpolitik" and "moving away from its pro-European orientation".
Could Russia's evolving worldview make it more amenable to a subservient alignment with China? Russia's self-image as an independent great power rules out such a prospect. Even during the dominance of the Westernizers, Moscow refused to accept an unequal partnership with the West. It is unlikely to accept one with China.
Of China's 14 neighbors, Russia and India are the most important in continental Asia. Historically, it was the Soviet decision to normalize ties with China in the mid-1980s that persuaded India to follow suit in 1988. By 2008, Russia and China had solved all their territorial disputes.
In the contemporary phase, Russia and India's China policies appear similar. At a global level, both find it beneficial to collaborate with China whether in the UN or in BRICS. For Russia, China is a useful partner to restrain any unilateralist impulses of the West. Regionally, and, on the Russian and Indian peripheries, however, the China factor becomes more complex and competitive pressures often form the backdrop to interactions.
Although neither Russia nor India want to participate in a regional cold war against China, neither is willing to entertain a Chinese sphere of influence in Asia. As Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov remarked last year, "It is important to prevent ... the Asia Pacific Region from going beyond the limits of natural and mutually stimulating competition and following the negative path of heated rivalry or even confrontation."
Russia's Asia-Pacific policy, Sergey Lavrov more recently stated, is "aimed at a stable balance of power". Russia's conduct underscores this clearly.
In April this year, Russia and Japan began a new push to resolve their 70-year territorial dispute over the Kurile Islands and normalize relations. A former Japanese diplomat recently remarked, "The most important element for breaking a territorial stalemate is the international situation ... the chance to settle the dispute is still there." For Japan, it is all about China.
For Russia, it is also part of a quest to restore some of its Pacific influence, develop new energy linkages and develop the Russian Far East. Russia has recognized that tapping maritime East Asia would require new transportation options such as shipped liquefied-natural gas (LNG) or sub-sea pipelines rather than its traditional focus on continental pipelines to Europe and China. Japan and South Korea are world's largest LNG importers absorbing 50 percent of global supply. Japan imports 96% of its gas of which Russia's present share is merely 8%. Russian gas would offer a secure and much shorter line of communication to an import-dependent Japan.
Both the foreign and defense ministers of Russia and Japan are starting a first round of dialogue this November. Russian President Putin and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have held talks four times this year, most recently at the APEC summit in Indonesia.
On the Korean peninsula too, Russia's eastern "pivot" is palpable. Both Russia and China are competing in leveraging their geopolitical location to offer new Eurasian lines of communication to East Asia, which have traditionally relied on the maritime route to Europe. In September, Russia opened a 54-km rail link to the North Korean port of Rajin as a pilot project to potentially link the entire Korean peninsula with the Trans-Siberian Railway network.
Moscow's ties with South Korea have grown wider, with trade touching $25 billion in 2012. Russia has been assisting South Korea in developing its space program since 2004 and this August put another South Korean satellite into orbit. In industrial R&D, South Korean companies such as Samsung and LG rely on innovation and software development centers in Russia for their leading-edge consumer electronic products. In the automobile sector, South Korea is the only East Asian economy to have opened a complete manufacturing facility in Russia with a high degree of local components.
In Southeast Asia, Russia is pursing a clear policy of assisting Vietnam and Indonesia's military modernization. Russia is now the third-largest foreign investor in Vietnam after Japan and Singapore. Russia is also helping Vietnam renovate Cam Ranh Bay, an old deep-water harbor that served as an important Soviet naval base during the Cold War. Importantly, the select capabilities that Russia is providing Vietnam - submarines, frigates and fighter aircraft armed with anti-ship missiles - all indicate an attempt at enhancing Vietnam's interests in the South China Sea. By 2016, Vietnam will have six Kilo-class diesel submarines, which are more advanced than the subs Russia has supplied to China.
Russia is increasing the bargaining space for Vietnam and enabling it to engage China more confidently on the South China Sea dispute.
What can India draw from Russia?
Too much of Indian security discourse is dominated by the China factor, often at the neglect of defining Indian interests in various areas or in assessing structural trends in global and regional security. The main challenge before India is to construct a role for itself in the Asia-Pacific region beyond simply reacting to China's rise.
Russia's sophisticated policy offers one model to pursue - an independent and positive role in the region while keeping a close eye on geopolitical stability and balance.
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