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Squeed invasion8/18/2023 ![]() Some countries will even be both rivals and allies in different spheres.Ī version of this is also happening in the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia is actively seeking to balance its relations with countries beyond the United States. Countries of the size of India expect and even want to balance their strategic interests, allying with some and rivaling with others. Yet the previous two decades have marked a major – and almost certainly decisive – shift toward a multipolar world. Some even claim a Russian defeat would accelerate such a scenario. The sudden unity among Western countries has rekindled hopes that there could once again be a resurgence of a Western-led global order, of the kind seen in the 1990s before the Iraq debacle and the rise of China. Better to stay above the fray – or as critics would categorize it, turn a blind eye to a brutal war.īehind India’s resistance to Ukraine’s overtures is also an unspoken consideration: The Ukraine war will almost certainly not end the way the West hopes. Tilting into either camp would be a propaganda coup for that side, but would cost India dearly. But neutrality actually matters a great deal across Indian politics.Īnd this is the central dilemma that India, and by extension the rest of the Global South, has faced. There is, of course, a political case to be made that, with China increasingly siding with Russia, India can leverage its neutrality into a leadership role. Taken together, that’s easily 40% of the planet who not only want to remain neutral, but are comfortable saying so in public.įor India, historically a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War that tried to remain independent, staying neutral has special historical resonance. While the majority of the world’s countries voted in favor of the resolution, and a handful of pro-Russian countries voted against, a vast swath of Asian countries abstained: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, along with all the Central Asian countries and China. The non-binding resolution demanded that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine” and called for an end to hostilities. View from the Global SouthĪ glimpse of this can be seen in the most recent United Nations vote on the invasion, at the end of February. But much of the rest of the world, even after a year of war, sees it very differently. The starkness of the question, fueled by the very real fear that an emboldened Russia might continue to threaten countries closer to the heart of the European Union, such as Sweden and Finland, has created a unity among Western leaders rarely seen in recent years. This year, it holds the presidency of the Group of Twenty, a grouping of the world’s wealthiest countries, and hoped to shift the conversation away from the war, to little avail. In fact, India has tried very hard this past year to speak about anything but the war. ![]() Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Vladimir Putin in the autumn and declared their friendship “unbreakable.” Even so, Modi has spoken little about Ukraine. Without criticizing the West, it has nonetheless refused to sanction Russia and has even increased its purchases of Russian oil as European markets have cooled. Since the start of the war, India has tried to maintain a neutral stance. ![]() The arrival of Emine Dzhaparova is the first step in a renewed charm offensive to persuade India to relinquish its determined neutrality. For the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, a Ukrainian minister has landed in India. ![]() The arrival of Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister in New Delhi this week is, depending on whom you ask, either the routine meeting of a government official (according to the Indian side) or a chance to send a strong message to Russia’s president (according to the Ukrainian side). ![]()
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