PM Modi's visit to Russia must revive special relationship both countries shared not too long ago

Prime  Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in St Petersburg on Thursday (June 1) on the last leg of his current European tour, and his summit meeting with Russian President  Vladimir Putin will be, strategically, the most significant interaction for both leaders. The outcome of this meeting has the potential to define the strategic space available to both countries as they prepare to navigate the prevailing and anticipated global turbulence. If the European leg of Modi’s visit is an indicator of flux, it is likely that the waters of the global strategic pond will be further roiled by the unpredictable tenure of United States President Donald Trump, and a more assertive China under an extended era of the Xi Jinping consolidation of power.

While PM Modi will also participate in the St Petersburg International Economic Forum as the guest of honour —  the sub-text of the summit will be a candid reality check of the state of the bilateral and the relative subalternity of both countries in the emerging global economic landscape. The US and the fragmenting European Union are still the most economically powerful entities — even if they are both in relative decline, and at about US$16 trillion each — their combined economic weight is more than thrice that of China.

However, the latter is poised to overtake the US  as the world’s number one single-state GDP in about a  decade, while India is expected to come in a distant third by way of GDP. Long-term economic projections vary, but one scenario envisages that by 2031, the global GDP  will be US$35 trillion for China, US$33 trillion for US and US$10 trillion for India. Russia is estimated to have a GDP of US$2.4 trillion.

The  2015 GDP  in US$ trillion for these nations was US (US$18 trillion), China (US$11.3 trillion), India (US$2.1 trillion) and Russia (US$1.2 trillion), and the nature of the GDP growth over a 15-year period tells its own tale of the domestic, political and economic challenges. Sustainable GDP growth means an improved socio-economic quality of life for those at the lower end of the pyramid, along with tangible employment opportunities for the younger demography — a universal challenge to which neither Russia nor India are exceptions.

The strategic challenge of the Putin-Modi summit is to repair the dilution of what was once perceived as a ‘special relationship’. While there was no doubt that when Moscow was the capital of the USSR, this relationship was of high value for India. In fact, the Cold War decades are replete with the steady political, diplomatic, strategic and military inventory support extended by the Bear (Russia) to the Elephant (India). This was a mutually useful relationship as the USSR also benefited by way of its relationship with India during the latter part of the Cold War, when the US and China embarked upon a strategic rapprochement.

GDP is not the sole indicator of strategic and security relevance, and Russia under President Putin has demonstrated an astute ability in using military capability, which has been on display both in Eastern Europe and West Asia. The challenge for Moscow today is its increasing dependence on China for trade, connectivity and the sale of military inventory. This is likely to increase for two reasons. The first is that the thawing of relations between a Trump-led US and President Putin has not unfolded as had once been envisaged, and the second is the internal dissonance within the major European powers about how to deal with Moscow.

The current strategic orientation for Moscow is a greater level of visible discord with the US, simmering discontent with the West European block and a growing drift in relations with India. For PM Modi, the enhanced political-strategic and security engagement between Russia and China, that was evident during the Beijing Belt and Road  Forum in mid-May where Putin was a special guest, shrinks India’s options within this triangular relationship.

Concurrently, the forthcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, to be held in Kazakhstan on June 7-8  where  PM  Modi will participate, will see both India and Pakistan being admitted — and the discomfiture for Delhi is that terrorism is a major issue for the SCO. And both Beijing and Moscow perceive Pakistan and Rawalpindi, the GHQ of the Pakistani Army, as part of the solution. For Delhi, however, this is a case of welcoming the fox in the hen coop!

Russia’s current engagement with Pakistan, which includes the sale of limited military inventory and joint exercises, should not adversely impact the malleability of the Delhi-Moscow bilateral.

The writer, a former Commodore in the Indian Navy, is Director, Society for Policy Studies, Delhi