Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s back-to-back visits to France and the United States in early February overlapped with a stern message from President Donald Trump, delivered to Europe in Munich by US Vice President JD Vance.
Many assumptions in the security and strategic domains, which were considered set in stone, have been upturned and stood on their head.
The US-led trans-Atlantic alliance was born during the World War II and nurtured through the Cold War, as part of Washington’s containment strategy. It is now being rearranged, with a tentative rapprochement with Moscow on the cards.
Major power relations have been radically churned in the first month of the Trump presidency under the 'Make America Great Again (MAGA)' banner, and India is coping with this turbulence in a reasonably satisfactory manner, as illustrated by the Modi-Trump meeting in Washington.
Delhi will attempt to accommodate the Trump demands related to trade tariffs and illegal immigration, while also ramping up acquisition of the US military inventory.
How robust the India-US strategic partnership will be during the Trump presidency remains moot. However, Modi's visit to Paris provides an opportunity to review the challenges and opportunities for Delhi within the global hexagon comprising of the US, China, and Russia as autonomous powers; the European Union (EU) and Japan as US allies; and India as a swing-state.
Lessons from the Cold War
During the latter phase of the Cold War, there were two superpowers — the US and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) — and two secondary but geopolitically significant states, namely China and India.
In the early 1970s, there was a stealthy churn in the prevailing global strategic framework when the US, under President Nixon, opened a secret dialogue with China. The wily Henry Kissinger was the sherpa and Pakistan the conduit. By mid-1971, the US and China had began their rapprochement, and Delhi, wedded to non-alignment, read the tea leaves astutely.
Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi took a momentous political decision by signing the friendship treaty with Moscow in August 1971. With Pakistan dismembered, Bangladesh emerged as a new nation in December that year, despite fierce opposition from the US.
The Cold War finally ended in late 1991 in an anomalous manner: the US, the world's oldest democracy, had communist China in its tent, while a communist Soviet Union had the largest democracy, India on its side.
India’s Strategic Needs in a Volatile World
In the current global flux, which began with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has now radically catalysed by President Trump, is there a case for India to increase its strategic partnerships, currently restricted to Russia and the US, in a more definitive manner?
The answer, in my view, is yes – and France is the most viable option.
India is currently a dependent military power, which means that while it has acquired a modest degree of autonomy in the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) domain — such as nuclear weapons and missiles — its critical conventional military capability is import-derived.
Russia, France and the US are its major suppliers at present and President Trump, in his abrasive, extractive manner, expects Delhi to buy more conventional military inventory from the US.
However, the truly strategic capability, which is nuclear propulsion for naval platforms, is not on the table. Moscow has provided this kind of support and hence the India-Russia relationship will be an abiding feature within the global hexagon.
France: A Proven Strategic Partner
France has been a long-term supplier of military equipment to India, dating back to the late 1950s when its platforms included the Mystere fighter aircraft, Alize anti-submarine aircraft, Alouette helicopters, and light tanks.
Over the past six decades, this list has expanded to include Mirage and Rafale combat aircraft, as well as the Scorpene submarines. France is a tough negotiator, and both premium price tags and parsimonious technology transfer are standard for a buyer like India.
But these characteristics notwithstanding, there is a strong case for Delhi and Paris to arrive at an objective and strategic determination about how a more robust, long-term, techno-strategic partnership, tailored for the current volatility, will enhance their respective core national interests.
India is seeking a more credible degree of strategic autonomy, reflected in its quest for tangible ‘atamanirbharta’ (self-reliance) in the military inventory sector. Russia, which once accounted for more than 70 percent of Indian military imports, saw its share drop down down to 36 percent in the 2019-2023 period, while France has moved up to second place at 33 percent in the same period.
Whether it is jet engine technology, fighter aircraft, conventional submarines or nuclear propulsion, France has viable options. How India can leverage this to enhance its own profile will depend on the Delhi-Paris strategic acumen, and how they read the tea leaves that have been stirred.
It merits recall that when India carried out its nuclear tests in May 1998 and became a relevant strategic power, France was the most empathetic country within the US-led western alliance. Unlike other members, it did not censure Delhi.
France itself has zealously guarded its own strategic autonomy within the US-led western alliance, and can perhaps relate to a similar trait in the Indian strategic culture.
What the Trump shake-up has also done is signal an abdication of the larger responsibility that devolves upon major powers; one of the first decisions taken by President Trump was to take the US out of the Paris climate accord.
It is a matter of considerable regret that complex global issues such as climate change, and new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), have been reduced to cynical commercial gain and transactional advantage by the current White House. Major powers must step up, and in this context, sustained Paris-Delhi consultations would be beneficial.
Both India and France have long advocated their preference for meaningful and equitable multipolarity at the global level. It is perhaps time to walk the talk.
(C Uday Bhaskar is a leading expert on strategic affairs. He is currently Director, Society for Policy Studies. This is an opinion piece. All views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)