US-Russia Vie For Ties With Nuclear India

Nuclear India is suddenly a high priority for both United States and Russia. Is this a stance to counter the growing clout of China as a 'Growing Power'?

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This is just a beginning of what is going on in China. It won't take too long when we'll read a prefix 'Superpower' added to China. Surely, there are many who don't like the idea of a communist superpower. However, there's only one country that won't like any one to stand against its power or have its hierarchy challenged in the international system. No doubt, everybody will get it right, United States of America.

When talking about superpowers, can't leave Russia out. Since the US invasion of Iraq and the unrelenting insurgency that resulted in enormous military and budgetary costs on the United States and watching all this happen, US's major geopolitical adversary - Russia - has focused on rebuilding its own state power. As Russia tries to revive its economy extraordinarily since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, India has become a point of focus providing its current military ambitions, that makes it Russia's principal market.

The United States' unipolar pretensions have been scattered by its own folly in Iraq. The simultaneous revival of Russian power has once again brought to the fore the issue of the stability and management of the international system.

As U.S. attempts to construct and consolidate an alliance to contain China's seemingly inexorable rise, what else can be better than India. And look how they kicked off this attempt, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to allow the government to transfer nuclear fuel and technology to India in November last year. The nuclear deal with India flies in the face of long-standing U.S. rhetoric about nuclear proliferation and is yet another blow to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In addition to these aspects is the liaison of Indo-Russian interests in the geostrategic realm. Asian geopolitics and the emergence of China at its epicenter will require that India build a stronger strategic relationship with Russia both for purposes of strategic insurance and greater stability in Eurasia. Such a strategy does not rule out an equally constructive engagement with China or, for that matter, with the US. However, this geostrategic path may be more beneficial than getting entangled by the US in respect of its own possible future confrontation with China.

In all this setting, India today is in a position, where it can constructively engage all the great powers in the system to advance its objectives. It can be argued that India is the sole rising power that is yet to be wholly housed and mirrored in the major political institutions of today's system.