India’s ‘show of strength’ risks global strategic fallout

Indian foreign policy stands at a perilous inflection point. With Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly invited to New Delhi despite an active warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC)—including charges for mass illegal deportation of Ukrainian children—the Modi government appears to be staging a calculated show of strength. This may be aimed, in part, at sending a signal to United States President Donald Trump after his stunning 50-percent retaliatory tariffs on Indian goods. But it also sends a much more dangerous message—to the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the wider US strategic establishment: that India is willing to sacrifice long-term partnerships for short-term bravado.

It is one thing to seek transactional balance in a multipolar world. But the public optics of hosting Putin, complete with bear hugs and red carpets, risks pushing India from being seen as a strategic balancer to a reckless outlier. In the current climate—already marked by global economic uncertainty, trade fragmentation, and mounting geopolitical instability—such performative gestures carry high costs.

Until now, India has walked a careful tightrope: securing discounted Russian oil while deepening strategic ties with the West. But optics matter. Welcoming Putin with warmth will not be seen as pragmatic neutrality. It will be read as alignment with an indicted autocrat and directly undermining the authority of the ICC. Despite India not being a signatory, this would severely hamper India’s moral credibility and dilute its leverage with key economic and strategic partners.

The economic risks are stark. The US is India’s largest export market, accounting for $78 billion in goods in 2023–2024. A comprehensive trade deal could increase Indian exports by up to 64 percent, delivering major gains in GDP and job creation—especially in medium-tech manufacturing, chemicals, apparel, and electronics.

The EU is equally central. With 113 billion euros in bilateral goods trade and more than 21 percent of India’s FDI stock, the EU is not just a market—it is a gateway to capital, cutting-edge technology, and green industrial growth. India stands to gain immensely from the long-awaited India-EU Free Trade Agreement, which would align Indian industry with next-generation norms around data privacy, labor rights, and environmental standards, providing long-term advantages in quality, brand value, and competitiveness. But European leaders—especially in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Scandinavia—are tightly bound by post-Ukraine political consensus and public opinion. Hosting Putin at this juncture risks collapsing FTA negotiations just as they near completion.

And it won’t stop with the EU. Countries like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the UK—pillars of India’s Indo-Pacific vision—will not miss the message either. Each of these countries, like India, has staked its future on an open, rules-based order.

India has already paid a steep reputational price for its recent choices. Its silence on Gaza and close alignment with Israel have left its moral leadership threadbare. This silence is not ignored abroad. It reinforces the image of India as a country more comfortable with authoritarian allies than with democratic accountability.

The question, then, is what India gains from this high-risk stunt.

Russia provides cheap oil and legacy weapons platforms. It cannot offer India next-gen semiconductors, climate finance, artificial intelligence infrastructure nor access to premium consumer markets. (It is after all, France, not Russia, that India cochaired the AI summit with.) China, meanwhile, is not an alternative—despite the recent thaw. Its border provocations, economic coercion, and military support to Pakistan all work against India’s long-term interests. While Beijing can offer some investment, it actively blocks India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, blocks the sale of rare-earth magnets and pharmaceutical inputs at will and undermines India in its near-abroad.

In truth, only the US and EU can offer at scale what India needs: export markets, technology transfers, capital investment and regulatory alignment with the cutting edge of the global economy. Betting on autocracies while alienating democracies is not autonomy—it is isolation and national self-harm.

At this moment, one handshake—one hug—could undo decades of careful diplomacy. India must ask itself: is a performative jab at Trump worth alienating every other pillar of its global strategy?

India does not lack options. What it lacks—urgently—is clarity. This is a time for strategic sobriety, not symbolic stunts. It is not too late to back off and pivot back to policy rationality.

—————-

Sahasranshu Dash is a research partner at the South Asia Institute of Research and Development, Kathmandu, Nepal. He has previously written for The Diplomat, Modern Diplomacy, Latinoamerica21, East Asia Forum, El Universal and Mediapart.