Ukraine crisis and its implications for India

The trauma and tragedy unfolding now is a precursor, despite some fierce resistance, to the fall of Kyiv.
Ukraine crisis and its implications for India

The Russian military attack on Ukraine (Feb 24) that jolted the world reached a critical cusp on Saturday (Feb 26) with Russian tanks closing in on the beleaguered capital Kyiv, even as the death toll mounts and thousands of local citizens flee the hapless nation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stunned the global community with his ruthless use of military force to alter the political map of central Europe and the implications of this action are complex and multi-layered. The immediate fallout is on the urban citizenry of Ukraine (population 41 million) and television visuals of the destruction of military assets by Russian ordnance bear similarity to the deadly convulsions witnessed in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan in the last two decades. The collateral damage suffered by civilians is tragic and reminiscent of the bloody history of Europe, which till February 24 thought that a military aggression of this nature was a familiar feature of a traumatic past now consigned to history.

The trauma and tragedy unfolding now is a precursor, despite some fierce resistance, to the fall of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. It also seems inevitable that President Putin will impose a political template which will seek to ensure that a demilitarized Ukraine remains neutral; NATO membership is no longer an option; and Kyiv remains beholden to Moscow. A Ukraine model based on the Finland arrangement may yet emerge – but it will be an unhappy and anguished Ukrainian majority. Should they choose to oppose Russian aggression – a bitter and bloody civil war is a probability. But for now – Ukraine is alone –and it is unlikely that any other nation would send its ‘boots’ to support Kyiv. This is the cynical reality of the geo-politics of the early 21st century and a post Ukraine global framework is forming with multiple contradictions between aspiration and reality, mediated by the compulsions of principle, power, opportunism and political pragmatism – all of this in flux, against the backdrop of a Covid scarred global economy with its tangled web of dependencies.

A clinical and objective review of the major powers and their penchant to use military force in the post Cold war period would suggest that whether Ukraine in 2022 or Iraq in 2003 – there are no effective constraints to inhibit such actions. The UN Security Council with its five permanent members have ensured that their own policies and related actions remain unfettered and unless they tread on each other's core interests – the unwritten principle of ‘might is right’ prevails. Yes, there is a rhetorical commitment to liberal values and the normative principles of international relations – but as Ukraine demonstrated, having Russia sit in the chair of the UNSC to review its own actions is akin to the fox being in charge of the hen coop.

The world entered a post Cold War phase in December 1991 when the Soviet Union imploded and the USA was acknowledged as the sole superpower. This image of a confident hegemon that faced no challenge was sullied with the terror attack of September 9, 2001. An uneasy world lurched into a post 9/11 global order which had an pyrrhic denouement in the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2022 and the triumphal return of the Taliban to Kabul.

US credibility was dented by the chaotic withdrawal from the Afghan quagmire and this had been preceded by a tumultuous Trump presidency and a covid pandemic that acquired a global foot-print – though China remained relatively unscathed.

An exaggerated perception of the decline of the US gained traction, along with a China that believed it had ‘arrived’ and could challenge what it saw as US hegemony and unilateralism. Concurrently the Russia - US relationship also turned more brittle and the just concluded Winter Olympic games in Beijing saw the consolidation of a China-Russia strategic dyad – a relationship that is now projected as one that has ‘no limits.’

The invasion and impending fall of Kyiv to the Russian military will be a definitive punctuation in global geo-politics and the world is now groping for the contour of the post Ukraine world order. A Sino-Russian axis that is in opposition to the US and its allies is on the cards – though some European nations have different views on how to deal with Moscow over its Ukraine invasion given their dependence on Russian gas.

India is in a similar predicament since it has nurtured a special relationship with Moscow for decades. During the second phase of the Cold War, the US had co-opted China as a junior partner to contain the former USSR and Moscow in turn invested in Delhi through a ‘friendship’ agreement. The latter partnership blossomed into a major military inventory relationship whose most significant outcome was India enabling the creation of Bangladesh.

The US focus /pivot to Russia over Ukraine will have multiple implications for India. Its abstention over the UNSC vote may cause immediate disappointment in Washington about India, but of deeper import will be the impact of the invasion on the Indo-Pacific as a region of US strategic relevance. The prioritization of China as the abiding challenge for the US and its allies may be diluted given the political salience of Ukraine for President Joe Biden. It is very unlikely that he will go to the American voter as the President who lost both Afghanistan and Ukraine and hence the US focus and related effort will be on galvanizing an ambivalent NATO to deal with Russia and the catalyzed Sino-Russian dyad.

India will have to review its own security and strategic challenges in the post Ukraine context and manage its relations with an assertive China that may seek to mediate the India-Russia relationship and the military inventory supplier status that Moscow enjoys.

The received wisdom about the next decade is that the global GDP ladder will be that of China in pole position with the US as a close second and India as a distant third. This accords India a ‘swing’ status in the emerging strategic calculus and both Washington and Beijing would be calibrating their own post-Ukraine long term policies accordingly. However, much will depend on India’s profile as a liberal democracy that remains committed to the normative principle – even if Delhi was constrained to remain silent over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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