India Won’t Abandon Russia

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed an additional 25 percent tariff on most Indian imports to the United States, bringing the total tariff rate on India to a whopping 50 percent. The secondary taxes ostensibly aim to induce India to end its purchases of Russian oil, which Trump argues are fueling the war in Ukraine. The United States previously granted approval to India’s oil purchases from Russia if a price cap was maintained.

Despite the obvious costs that Trump’s tariffs are likely to put on India’s economy—and even if it ultimately agrees to scale back its oil imports—New Delhi will not abandon its long-standing partnership with Moscow. There are at least four compelling reasons why.

First, though estimates vary, more than 60 percent of India’s existing military arsenal is of either Soviet or Russian origin. It has no doubt sought to diversify its weapons acquisitions in recent decades, but New Delhi cannot afford to abruptly terminate its arms transfer relationship with Moscow without either endangering its security or without severe cost to its treasury. Despite Russia’s own military needs amid its war in Ukraine, it remains a vital supplier of both advanced military equipment and spare parts to India.

Furthermore, according to many in the Indian security policy establishment, Russia places few constraints on the military equipment that it supplies to India, unlike the United States. The United States has restrictions on dual-use technology, as well as the re-export of sensitive defense technologies to third parties.

Second, India genuinely fears that distancing itself from Russia diplomatically could entail significant strategic costs. New Delhi is wary of the growing closeness between Moscow and Beijing, its long-term archrival. Indian officials believe that any sharp move that leads to frosty relations with Russia will contribute to greater warmth between Moscow and Beijing. Such an outcome would leave India in dire straits, given the strategic asymmetries that it already faces in its bilateral relationship with China.

Third, India and Russia share a long and mostly cooperative history that has weathered vicissitudes before and proved durable that dates to the Cold War. Especially since 1971, when India and the Soviet Union signed a 20-year treaty of “peace, friendship and cooperation,” Moscow has been New Delhi’s principal security partner. At a time when India lacked many friends on the global stage, Russia proved itself to be a staunch and reliable supporter. The mutual benefits of this partnership were manifold.

From a diplomatic standpoint, India could count on the Soviet Union to use its veto power at the United Nations Security Council to prevent any hostile resolution on the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan. In turn, Moscow could count on New Delhi to limit U.S. influence in South Asia. It could then tout its friendship with India—then a robust democracy—across the developing world. The Soviet Union found it expedient to have another major Asian power to the south of China that remained at odds with Beijing, given the rift in Sino-Soviet relations from 1969 onward. And New Delhi knew that it could rely on Moscow to tie Beijing down in the event of any military tensions along its vast and disputed Himalayan border.

Admittedly, the partnership with the Soviet Union was not cost-free for India, especially in reputational terms; it was the only democracy of consequence that refrained from criticizing the Soviet invasion  and occupation of Afghanistan throughout the 1980s.

Still, a substantial arms transfer relationship bolstered this diplomatic closeness. The Soviet Union was willing to provide India with the most sophisticated conventional military equipment in its arsenal, not only at non-market prices but also based on rupee-ruble trade. When India was desperately short of hard currency due to an anemic economy and its lack of integration with global commerce, this arrangement was crucial to its military modernization efforts.

Finally, from the standpoint of most Cold War governments in New Delhi, the Soviet Union played an important role in India’s domestic politics that shaped the present. The Soviet political leadership could be counted on to rein in the more revolutionary proclivities of one of India’s two communist parties, the Communist Party of India, which looked to Moscow for ideological and political guidance. India’s communist movement is of limited significance today, but key individuals in the Indian foreign-policy establishment have memories that hark back to the Cold War era and remain grateful for the role that Moscow played.

Though all of this helped forge a multifaceted relationship, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia initially distanced itself from India. But the shift proved to be short-lived, as both parties decided that there was sufficient ballast to the relationship to sustain it. The fleeting period of American unipolarity, especially in the 1990s, led to calls from New Delhi, Moscow, and elsewhere for a multipolar world. When Yevgeny Primakov, who served as Russia’s foreign minister and later prime minister, boosted this idea, it found resonance in New Delhi.

India’s long and favorable association with the Soviet Union during the Cold War left an important and almost indelible legacy in foreign-policy circles in New Delhi—referred to elsewhere as “Cold War nostalgia.” Pared to the bone, this view holds that Russia, the principal successor state of the Soviet Union, remains a steadfast partner for India in an uncertain world.

As Trump settles into his second term, his mercurial policy choices are reinforcing the misgivings of India’s foreign and security policy communities about the unreliability and untrustworthiness of the United States. The bipartisan consensus about U.S.-India ties forged since the waning days of the Clinton administration and bolstered in the wake of the 2008 U.S.-India civilian nuclear accord now appears to be at considerable risk.

Faced with the possibility of being cast adrift after nearly two decades of what seemed to be a growing convergence of interests with the United States, India may decide that turning toward Russia provides it with a safe harbor.