• January 17, 2023

India and the new Eurasia

Tags:GS 2 India & Foreign Relations

In News

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is looking beyond his country’s alliance with the U.S. to deter China, bolstering security ties with democracies from Australia to Europe.

Russia’s Approach 

• Russia struggled to integrate into either the European or Asian powers, although seeing itself as both.

• It created the geopolitical concepts of “Eurasia” and “Greater Eurasia.”

• Putin sees it as his historic mission to bring the “Russkiy Mir,” or the Russian world, back together, which led to the takeover of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine.

• Despite the significant costs involved with the concept, he was adamant that he would follow it.

Various Developments Linked to New Eurasia

• Japan: It is committed to forging robust military alliances with Europe.
• Fumio Kishida, the prime minister of Japan, delivered a straightforward message: Europe’s and the Indo-Pacific region’s security are intertwined.
• To prevent China, Japan will likewise develop a sizable missile arsenal (and North Korea, whose missile capabilities have grown).
• US: At the US’s request, important Asian allies were invited to the NATO summit in Madrid in June.
• The meeting was attended by the leaders of Australia, Japan, and New Zealand as well as the president of South Korea.
• Asian leaders participated in NATO discussions for the first time during this meeting.
• The engagement of East Asia with European security challenges and NATO with Indo-Pacific issues will continue to be novel aspects of Eurasian geopolitics.
• The Biden Administration expressed a wish to see more cooperation with its friends and partners in Europe and Asia in its National Security Strategy, which was published in 2022.
• It is eager to support its allies, especially India, in enhancing their capacities and stabilising the regional power structures in both Europe and Asia.
• By enhancing its presence in Europe, South Korea is also joining the party.
• In Poland, it is selling important weapon platforms.
• In the AUKUS agreement, Australia has joined the US and UK. Australia is equally eager to include Europe in the Indo-Pacific.
• China -Russia Cooperation: China and Russia changed the geopolitical landscape in Eurasia before Japan and South Korea looked to Europe.
• In February 2022, Putin travelled to Beijing to sign a document that declared an alliance “without limits” and no “forbidden zones” just days before he gave the order to send his troops into Ukraine.
• Together, Putin and Xi revealed a Eurasian alliance in the hopes that it would be the long-awaited final blow to Western hegemony.

Implications for India 

• It is more difficult for India to travel on two boats at once as a result of the rise of Eurasia.
• Up till this point, India could easily run concurrently with the continental coalitions led by Russia and China and hunt with the marine coalition (the Quad) in the Indo-Pacific.
• As long as the maritime and continental powers did not engage in open hostilities, this was possible.
• But the battle between China and Russia and the US, Europe, and Japan is now severe and doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.
• The cloud cast over India’s continental strategy will therefore grow darker in the coming days as a result of China’s increasing security challenges along its border with the Himalayas and their growing closeness.
• On the plus side, there has never been a better time to increase India’s strategic capabilities in collaboration with the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.

Conclusion 

• The new dynamic presents challenges as well as opportunities for India and  It is up to Delhi now to seize the emerging possibilities.
• India needs to maintain a balance between the USA and China and to a greater extent between the Indo-Pacific region and Eurasia.
• India can act as a bridge between the Indo Pacific region and Eurasia power block. For this India needs to maintain linkage with China and especially with Russia.