Why Does India Maintain Defense Ties With Russia?

During the Soviet Union era, Moscow held the distinction of being India’s first true-blood strategic ally, bestowed with important exceptions to India’s rigid deference to non-alignment, including a 1971 Friendship Treaty against the backdrop of the Bangladesh War of Independence.

All that seems like the distant past now. From the heights of the Cold War, Russia has now become no more than an insipid arms seller to India.

Yet, even the defense ties of the present seem to have little context behind them. India and Russia have no major geopolitical interests in common anywhere – disagreeing on everything from China and the Indo-Pacific to Pakistan and Afghanistan. While India inches closer toward the Quad (a bloc that recently showed eagerness to invest in developing India’s domestic capabilities), Russia has cautioned against the Quad by branding it a potential “Asian NATO.” In March, Russia convened a meeting on Afghanistan and pointedly left India out. Even as India’s own suspicions toward China climb, Moscow has become increasingly dependent on Beijing in order to counter the United States. The geopolitical tides are tugging India and Russia apart.

With little common ground available, Russia’s own commitment to India’s defense preparedness is bound to be suspect – especially with India likely to deploy its national assets more actively in geopolitically sensitive regions such as Central Asia and the Indo-Pacific. In recent times, Russia has started looking elsewhere, including to Pakistan. In 2016, despite disquiet in New Delhi, Russia decided to send troops to Pakistan for their first joint exercise.

In early April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov went to Islamabad for the first time in nine years. During his visit, Lavrov pledged to supply Pakistan with “special military equipment” in the quest to fight terrorism, a rare upgrade in the relations between the two erstwhile Cold War rivals.

In the aftermath of Lavrov’s trips, rumors abounded about the possibilities ahead for a reorientation in Moscow’s attitude toward Pakistan and away from India. Russia’s ambassador to India later tried to downplay such concerns in clear and explicit terms, but India’s own defense ties have diversified away from Russia in recent years. Between 2015 and 2019, Russia’s share of India’s defense market fell from 72 percent to 56 percent, as New Delhi tried to replace Moscow with the United States, Israel, and others.

From New Delhi’s viewpoint, Russia is still considered an important part of the diversification process, helping India to prevent over-dependence on the United States and its allies.

But this is not an equation that can sustain itself without a stronger underlying rationale. India’s ties with Russia will not come without their own risks and costs for New Delhi. India’s eagerness to import the coveted S-400 air defense system from Russia has already ruffled some feathers in Washington, where both the Trump and Biden administrations have openly toyed with the possibility of levying sanctions if New Delhi goes ahead.

These issues are only bound to become more complicated over time. With Joe Biden’s ascent to the White House, U.S. differences with Russia have become more pronounced, as Washington tries to return to a more values-driven activist foreign policy. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently warned Russia of consequences, amid a Russian troop build-up in Ukraine. Then, as Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s health deteriorated in prison through April, Washington once again warned Moscow of further consequences. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, Russia joined the Taliban in criticizing Biden for pushing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from May to September.

In the midst of its geopolitical rivalry with Russia, India’s defense ties with Moscow leave much at stake for Washington. In its bid to coerce Russia to act on various domestic and global issues, from Ukraine to Afghanistan, the United States has relied on a policy of isolating and sanctioning Moscow. India’s sustained import of sensitive defense equipment from Russia flies in the face of that strategy. As the disagreement over the import of the S-400 system shows, New Delhi can’t hope that its defense deals with Russia will leave its burgeoning ties with the United States unharmed indefinitely.

Global military powers don’t invest in the defense and military capabilities of an emerging power unless they see their own strategic interests served in doing so. If India’s ultimate objective is to engage with countries in order to build its own national power, it can’t do so without paying heed to its underlying geopolitical and strategic interests. It has to be more aware of whom they diverge from and whom they converge with.