As India Finds itself Lost in the Wider World, the Loss of Strategic Autonomy is Striking

In the last US elections, India served as a loud – if uninformed – cheerleader with Narendra Modi standing next to Donald Trump to shout “Abki baar, Trump sarkar.” Fast forward to 2024. There is a huge silence, from both the government and commentators, on the upcoming US elections, which is striking. Both the cheerleading and the extreme discretion reveal the same thing, though, the erosion of Indian strategic autonomy and the increasing reliance on the US as India struggles even in its own neighbourhood and finds itself lost in the wider world.

The challenge with assessing Indian strategic thinking under the Modi government is that there is almost no yardstick by which one can measure success or failure. In the last ten years, there has been no release of a White Paper or strategy document, despite some talk of a release of a National Security Strategy. Looking at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election manifestoes is similarly unhelpful.

In the 2014 manifesto, we find the delightful phrase, “In our neighbourhood, we will pursue friendly relations. However, where required we will not hesitate from taking strong stand and steps,” which tells us precisely nothing. The 2019 manifesto is hardly better. There is no mention of the Quad, potentially India’s most prestigious new quasi-alliance, and the “Indo-Pacific”, a term that inserts India into the naval powerplay with China, is striking in its absence.

Where there are details, they are embarrassing. The 2014 manifesto mentions strengthening SAARC and engagement with ASEAN, but SAARC has not held a summit since 2014 since the next one would be in Pakistan and India is unwilling to go. The 2019 manifesto mentions the (unending) pursuit of a UN Security Council seat. It might be worthwhile to mention that in the two great wars currently raging in Ukraine and Gaza, the Indian contribution – even when it held the rotating presidency of the UNSC – has been precisely zero.

In terms of the preservation of international law – the core role of the UN – the lead on Myanmar has been taken by Gabon. The lead on Israel has been taken by South Africa. The lead on Russia has been taken by Ukraine and supported by the US. In all three cases, India is totally absent. In sum, like Modi’s declaration to Putin that this not the era of war (in the face of devastating wars), or the slogan of India’s G20 Presidency, “One earth, one family, one future”, all we have to judge Indian foreign policy aspirations is rhetoric.

Nonetheless, this does not mean that India has no strategic interests – the principal ones being able to manage its neighbourhood and influence global politics that would align with Indian interests. In more short-term and blunt terms, it means not being bullied by China. Unfortunately, it is increasingly clear that India cannot manage to do this on its own, and a simple assessment of what might happen if Trump emerges victorious in the upcoming US elections shows how this may turn out.

While Trump was incredibly volatile in office, there is one foreign policy issue on which there is significant clarity: support for Zelensky or Ukraine. Not only has Trump stated recently that he would end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours”, but the first impeachment he faced was because he tried to pressure Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden in 2019 after pausing aid to Ukraine. Gallup reported that, by October 2023, 55% of Republicans felt that the US was doing too much in Ukraine, and 43% of all Americans wanted the war to be quickly ended, even if it meant concessions to Russia, versus 54% who did not. That was a large change in these positions, which had been at 31% and 66%, respectively, in August 2022.

Not everybody believes that Trump would cede space to Putin. A senior US CENTCOM official told me that the Trump administration had given the military far more freedom of action, and in Syria, they had wiped out a Wagner mercenary group after a single warning. But a clearer picture of Trump in action on wars emerges out of Afghanistan. There, too, the Trump administration had given the military freedom of action, allowing a massive bombardment campaign, including the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the world. In the end, though, it was the Trump administration that agreed to the catastrophic troop withdrawal deal which handed Afghanistan over to the Taliban. It is hard to believe that Trump would do better against a nuclear-armed Russia, or be willing to do so on behalf of Zelensky, against whom he has a personal animus.

A withdrawal of US support for Ukraine would have far-reaching consequences, not just for Europe, but for India as well. The European Union would have to decide whether to follow the US and save NATO, or to stand up to Russia on its own and oppose the US. Either way, the future of NATO will be imperilled, especially as Trump has been critical of it in the past, and refused to explicitly support aid to NATO member-states if they were attacked, even if current NATO leadership downplays the threat.

While the Indian foreign minister has downplayed the consequences of war on Ukraine, the example of the US abandoning yet another war will have severe consequences for Asia. Russia may be the most obvious beneficiary, but it is China – which, unlike Russia, has lost nothing in terms of men and material, much less prestige – which will stand to gain the most. The Trump administration may have promised to support Taiwanese deterrence and to work with India (with India as a decidedly junior partner) in its Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy paper, but a US withdrawal from the Ukraine war will render such promises meaningless – unless, of course, a second Trump administration wants to guarantee them through a shooting war with Beijing.

In the face of such a challenge, what has India done that it would be able to deal as an equal with Beijing? The principal institution of transnational cooperation in the region – SAARC – has been reduced to a joke. The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) that India has pushed as an alternative continues to flounder, not least because two of the countries – Sri Lanka and Myanmar are in crises about which India can do, and has done, little. The trade with its richest country per capita, Thailand, rose to $15 billion in 2021-22. China-Thailand bilateral trade was around $135 billion in 2022. China is, in fact, the largest exporter to South Asia. India does not even figure in the top 5.

If Trump wins the US elections, and if he withdraws US support from Ukraine, damaging the deterrence capability of every alliance in which the US is a partner, what does India have, what has it nurtured – in terms of independent capability or in an alliance – that would allow it to chart an independent destiny? If the answer is nothing, then the chants of “not the era of war” or “one earth, one family, one future” become clear as not a strategic vision, or even empty slogans, but the desperate plea of a country reduced to second-rate status in its own neighbourhood, and capable of influencing nothing in the world.