The paradigms of geopolitics have been changing for the past few decades. Post-WW II an era of bipolarity ensued with the US and the erstwhile USSR leading their respective blocs and dominating the world. The 1990s saw the demise of the USSR and the emergence of the US as the sole superpower in an increasingly unipolar world. The US has since faced a serious challenge from the inexorable, meteoric rise of China further compounded by an evolving China-Russia Combine. A competing pole could thus usher in an age of unrelenting multipolarity. US’ grand strategy to tackle this threat to its singular pre-eminence appears to have been operationalized. The China-Russia Combine is to be tackled piecemeal. Russia has been comprehensively embroiled in Ukraine. The groundwork to entangle China in Taiwan and ensnare it in the Indo-Pacific and the Himalayas is ostensibly being laid down. As the world currently squirms and writhes between unipolarity and possible multipolarity, multi-alignment appears to be gaining some traction.
Multialignment is a series of parallel relationships that strengthen bilateral partnerships and seek a common approach toward security, economic equity, and the elimination of existential dangers like terrorism. (Wikipedia). In other words, it is aligning with multiple blocs or centers of power simultaneously, disallowing any one relationship to adversely affect another. Some find it unrealistic and/or impractical as it will invariably hamper the vital interests of one major power or the other and will thus attract its wrath. Therefore, it becomes imperative, a sine qua non, for a country to have an inviolable strategic autonomy for such a policy to succeed! Currently, India seems to be applying multi-alignment in its international relationships quite proactively. It is a middle power that is juggling its bilateral relations with the world’s three major powers, the US, Russia, and China, simultaneously. Maintaining strategic balance in this extremely sensitive trilateral arrangement requires sublime diplomacy, steel nerves, extreme dexterity, and absolute clarity of mind and purpose. India’s “famed strategic autonomy” is thus bound to face some very stern tests. India continues to maintain parallel bilateral relationships with the US and Russia, despite the complexities brought into its relationships with both by the Ukraine War. India is an avowed strategic and major defense partner of the US has signed the DTTI and four foundational agreements with it and is a proactive member of the QUAD and the I2U2. Simultaneously, it is a partner in the International North-South Transport Corridor that emanates from Russia and through Iran reaches India. It is also a member of the SCO and BRICS, both of which are created and led by the China-Russia Combine. Strikingly, it has abstained from voting against Russia on the Ukraine War in the UNSC and UNGA. It is still acutely dependent on Russia for the bulk of its military supplies and civil nuclear plants. Despite western sanctions on Russia, India continues to import heavily discounted oil from it. Reportedly, it intends to conduct bilateral trade with Russia in their respective currencies, ditching the US dollar. China is also a major factor in the US-India relationship. At the geopolitical level, the US needs India to balance out China’s evolving sphere of influence and strategic reach in the SCAR and GMER. At the geoeconomic level, it needs it to thwart the BRI-CPEC from moving further into the SCAR, Iran, GMER, Africa, and Europe. At the geostrategic level, it needs India to engage China’s PLA along the LAC, fix its major forces in the Himalayas, split the Chinese defensive maneuver, and thus improve its strategic balance in the potential Indo-Pacific Theater of War. The China-Russia bonhomie and US expectations of it, thus complicate matters even more for India. Nevertheless, India continues to manage its rather tenuous relationship with China and carries out a bilateral annual trade of a whopping US $ 100 billion!
Middle and lesser powers need to understand that multi-alignment essentially will be a function of the will, and the discretion of the major powers, particularly the US. No major power will brook any alignments or alliances that directly or indirectly impinge upon its global pre-eminence, its vital national interests, or hegemony in any way. Western Europe had flourishing economic ties with Russia and benefitted from massive supplies of Russian oil, gas, fertilizers, food grains, etc. However, once the US moved against the latter, nothing, not even the vital national interests of its strategic allies (NATO!) stopped it from unilaterally snuffing out all energy and economic ties between Western Europe and Russia. The explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines effectively sealed any resumption of Russian gas supplies to Europe. The shell-shocked Europeans acceded to US’ remorseless diktat without a whimper! India too could find itself in similar dire straits. It must realize that its prevaricating act in the Ukraine War has created serious doubts in the minds of its strategic partner(s). The US Ambassador to Pakistan’s visit to Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the German Foreign Minister’s comments on Kashmir are timely reminders to it that there are definite limits to its “famed strategic autonomy”, after all. Furthermore, Russian commitments in the Ukraine War will reduce the flow of weapon systems, equipment, spares, etc to India. Its reliance on its western strategic partners will thus increase manifold. It must also recognize that the geopolitics of the Eurasian landmass led by the China-Russia Combine and the Indo-Pacific maritime region led by the US is bound to place clashing, conflicting, at times divergent, and debilitating demands on it. Realistically, India’s policy of multi-alignment will survive only till it does not run afoul of the imperatives of the US’ geopolitical objectives. Period. Whenever the US comes calling and demands its pound of flesh, India will have to comply; or else pay back in bones and blood as well. When push comes to shove, the US can become a very ruthless and irrepressible strategic partner/ally, indeed. Ask Western Europe! Is multi-alignment genuinely viable in the current geopolitical milieu? Tailpiece: Did Pakistan’s last government make an abortive attempt to exercise its strategic autonomy and venture to “multialign” with Russia as well?