Dealing with the big boys

The multiple engagement (of big powers) that India has embarked upon is a dynamic one and needs to be tended with care and patience, writes C. RAJA MOHAN.

THE RECONSOLIDATION of Indo-Russian relations during the visit of the President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, last week, nearly completes a decade-long Indian diplomatic exercise to reorder relations with major powers after the end of the Cold War. The initial disorientation in New Delhi that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, India's long standing ally, at the turn of the 1990s has now been replaced by a complex, but pragmatic engagement with all.

In the last few years, India has made a determined bid to address the reality that the United States remains the sole super power at the end of the Cold War. The U.S. today looms large in the foreign policy of any nation. India had to quickly make up for the ``wasted decades'' of a semi-hostile relationship with the U.S. during the Cold War.

The visit by the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, to India in March and that by the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, to the U.S. in September have put in place a framework for productive engagement between the two nations. India also had to address the imbalance in the ties with the other major power centres in West Europe and Japan.

As post-Soviet Russia looked inward and to the West, the relations between New Delhi and Moscow drifted apart in the 1990s. Mr. Putin's visit, the first by a Russian President in more than seven years, was necessary to put the relations back on track.Meanwhile, the traditional tensions between India and China eased a bit during the 1990s. But the Indian nuclear tests of May 1998 put the relations once again into a deep chill. In the last two years, both sides have moved towards a wary normalisation.

If there is one area in great power relations that India must devote some extra energy, it is in relation to China. India needs to make a special effort to elevate the relationship with China to a higher political and economic level. The issues that divide the two nations are indeed complex and carry a lot of historical baggage. But the time has come for a bold initiative towards China; and that must include a determined move to find an early resolution to the boundary dispute.

India now has a reasonable engagement in place with all the key power centres of the world. But the multiple engagement India has embarked upon is a dynamic one and needs to be tended with care and patience.

Although all major power centres are dealing with one another, misperceptions could still be generated. Forward movement with one power could easily be misunderstood elsewhere. The talk of an alliance with the U.S., inevitably creates suspicion in Moscow and Beijing. The emphasis on a ``multipolar world'' and ``strategic triangles'' raises questions in the U.S. about the real direction of India's foreign policy.

Transparency in diplomacy, consistency in the articulation and implementation of foreign policy, and commitment to a set of basic principles are crucial for the success of the multidirectional engagement that India has embarked upon.

Although the Cold War has ended and the Indian foreign policy establishment is learning to navigate the turbulent waters of the new world order, the old mindsets remain entrenched. The temptation to think in terms of Cold War days remains.

Witness for example, the dismissal by some in India of Mr. Putin's trip as largely inconsequential. They imply that with India now proclaiming itself a ``natural ally'' of the U.S. and given the real decline of Russia as a major power in the last decade, New Delhi could easily do without the traditional friendship of Moscow.This approach raises three basic problems in India's relations with great powers. First, India's new emphasis on alliances, at a time when the word has lost some of its traditional meaning in the post-Cold War world, generates unrealistic expectations and needless uncertainties. Given its underdeveloped relations with the West, China and Japan, and the continuing importance of the Russian connection, India's interest lies in engaging all and not in looking for exclusive alliances with one or the other major power.

Second, the either-or approach in the domestic debate on foreign policy could easily disrupt the calibrated pursuit of India's interests with the great powers. One set of ideologues believe India should replace the past Russian alliance with a new American one. Another lot believes it is India's manifest destiny to always oppose the U.S. and stay true to the past anti-American slogans in foreign policy. This reflects wishful thinking on both sides of the political spectrum.Third, the belief that India can do without Russia is rooted in the assumption that India could put all its eggs in the U.S. or Western basket. More fundamentally, it is a throw back to the habit of wanting to choose sides among great powers. But there is no such choice in the real world.

The American relationship is indeed a very valuable one for India. But it cannot be the only one. India should not ignore the prospect of Russia bouncing back as a major power, its enduring importance as a supplier of defence and advanced strategic technologies, its role in stabilising Eurasia and its long-term value as a huge market.

Instead of searching for new allies or inventing new enemies, India should focus on issue-based coalitions with the major powers. On many issues, for example on the need for democratisation of international relations, New Delhi will find itself with Moscow, Paris and Beijing arguing against Washington. On supporting democracy, India will be together with Washington and Moscow. On countering terrorism and extremism, it could even try and put together a grand coalition of all the major powers. Meanwhile, the main business of India with all the key power centres must be business, which is way below potential in all directions.

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