In the category of crises, the one around Ukraine looks fairly unique. The slow-motion crisis has been building up slowly as the Russians concentrate their forces to the north and east of Ukraine. Their build-up is supposed to peak only in early 2022. Meanwhile, everyone has been left guessing Putin’s intentions. The American response, too, has been fairly low-key, with the US ruling out any military action but undertaking intense diplomacy to ward off a crisis.
Yet, should there be an invasion of Ukraine, or were the situation to ease off through a Russian-American deal, there would be a global fallout with implications for India.
Russia's Latest Security Treaty
In 2014, Russia occupied Crimea and pro-Russian forces established themselves in chunks of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces of Ukraine. This led to the imposition of sanctions on Russia by the US and its European allies.
On Friday, 17 December, Russia published a draft security treaty that it wanted to sign with the West. The central point of the draft was a western commitment that Ukraine will not join NATO and that the alliance will reduce its deployments in Central and Eastern Europe. Moscow said it was ready to immediately send a negotiator to start talks with the US.
On the same day, White House Press secretary Jan Psaki confirmed that the US had proposals from Russia to start talks to defuse the crisis. While there are no current plans for Ukraine to join NATO, western countries have rejected the notion of Russia holding a veto on NATO policy decisions.
The US is on record to say that there are things in the Russian draft which Moscow knows will not be acceptable to the West, and the NATO has its own demands of Russia. However, the Russian proposals have not been rejected out of hand. This could well be a situation where both sides are putting across their maximal demands and would be willing to compromise at some point. If so, this could have major geopolitical consequences.
Gauging the US Response
On 7 December, which also happened to be Pearl Harbor Day, President Biden had a two-hour-long telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. He made it clear that while the US did not plan a military response immediately, it would impose very heavy economic penalties on Russia and also reposition NATO forces in Europe. The US response would be much more substantial than it had to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 when Barack Obama was President and Biden was Vice-President.
Russia remains under sanctions imposed at the time, but this time around, they could be far more severe. They could involve blocking the newly constructed Russian-owned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, providing Russian gas to Europe. In addition, Russian companies could be blocked from accessing global capital and there could be financial penalties on the Russian oligarchs who support Putin. The toughest step could be cutting off Russia from the SWIFT global financial settlement system. Besides Russia, the biggest losers here could be the European Union. Russia provides 35 per cent of Europe’s gas supply and has $350 billion of EU assets, but the Europeans have lined up with the US to talk tough to the Russians.
In some ways, what we may be witnessing is a game of chicken, with the Russians and Americans seeing who blinks first.
With his “tough guy” approach, Putin may be assuming that Biden is easy game after the Afghan debacle. But the fallout of that event could very well have persuaded the American President to take a much tougher stand this time around.
But Russians Do Have a Point
It is not as though the Russians do not have a point. When the Cold War ended, the US had promised that after the unification of Germany, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction. However, taken in by the hubris of the “unipolar moment” when it believed it had won the Cold War, the US did more or less what it wanted, and in 1997, began the process of enlarging NATO to bring in erstwhile members of the Warsaw Pact.
Should the Russians decide on military action, it would have immediate consequences in terms of death, destruction and refugees heading westwards. The Ukrainian forces would give the Russians a tough fight with their capabilities beefed up by western training and defensive equipment. There are also worries that the conflict could spill over to other European countries and eventually force NATO to intervene. A conflict involving states with nuclear weapons could have all manner of unforeseen consequences.
Geopolitically, it would also lead to a complete break of Russian relations with the US and Europe. Any rupture with the West would push Moscow towards even closer ties with Beijing. However, at the same time, the Russians could end up facing reinforced NATO deployment on their border.
On the other hand, if some kind of a deal can be arrived at, it will have significant outcomes as well. For one, it could well lead to the lifting of the post-Crimean sanctions and a general entente between Russia and Europe. This could weaken the impulse that is pushing Moscow towards Beijing.
India Will Benefit From a Russia-US Deal
Either scenario – a Russian invasion, or a US-Russian deal – has major implications for India. A Russian invasion and a rupture with the US and its allies would lead to pressure on India to choose between the Western alliance and Russia. Immediately, it could result in CAATSA sanctions on India on account of the S-400 purchase. There could be a demand for India to cut defence ties with Russia across-the-board. This will not be not easy for India to contemplate since its armed forces will be dependent on Russian spares and equipment for the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, a US-Russian deal could lead to the latter slowing down the pace of its relationship with China. This could give India the opportunity to build on its recent efforts to reset its Russian ties. If it is accompanied by a similar thaw in the US-Iran relationship, it could pave the way for India, Russia and Iran to work on the International North-South Transportation (INSTC) project that has been hobbled by the sanctions imposed by the US on Iran and Russia.
(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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