Authors

Nivedita Kapoor¹;  ¹ Personal capacity, Russian Federation

Discussion

The regional order in South Asia in the post-Cold War period has undergone a significant evolution and become a space for major power competition. A rising India, which aspires to achieve a leadership position in its neighbourhood, has faced resistance from its neighbours. In broader terms, India’s rise has been surpassed by that of China, giving smaller states in South Asia both leverage and choices in their foreign policy conduct. As Beijing has made inroads into a region New Delhi is located in, the latter has shifted its policy to deal with this challenge. This has been seen in its active engagement with external players to deal with the China challenge in the competition for influence in South Asia. This has been called one of the most significant developments in Indian foreign policy - wherein New Delhi has welcomed cooperation with non-regional actors (including the US, Japan and others) to improve its capacity to deliver public goods in the neighborhood through more aid, investment and enhanced outreach. It has also expanded interactions in the Indian Ocean region where dialogues on maritime security and naval cooperation have gained more prominence, with India cooperating with Quad countries, Singapore, France and Germany, to name a few. China has on the other hand relied on its economic power to expand political influence and built close relations with Pakistan to check Indian influence. This contentious regional dynamics between India and China, alongside presence of other significant interested powers, has broadly defined the contours of competition in South Asia. Russia, which maintains a strategic partnership with both India and China, will have to navigate this complex gamut of regional order building in South Asia as part of its broader strategy to turn to the non-west in its foreign policy engagement. As regional states and external stakeholders seek to maximize their interests amidst multiple simmering security issues (Afghanistan, India-Pakistan, India-China etc.), how do Russian capacities and ambitions compare in South Asia? As rising powers like India and China compete for influence, how does it reflect on policies of declining powers like Russia, with reference to the narrative of a ‘multi-polar world’? Given Moscow’s ambitions of engaging with the non-western world on a priority basis, the paper will use the case study of evolving South Asian regional order amidst broader major power rivalry to reveal strengths and weaknesses of Russian efforts to engage the Global South?