Lavrov’s Praise of India’s Principled Neutrality has a Global Strategic Significance
As the world’s second most populous country and one of its most promising emerging economies, India exerts significant influence over the Global South. Its principled neutrality serves as an example to all others that it’s indeed possible to successfully resist US pressure in pursuit of one’s own objective interests.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov enthusiastically praised India’s independent foreign policy during his trip to New Delhi for talks with his counterpart Jaishankar. This is evidenced by his statement before their meeting and the questions that he answered from the press afterwards. Those who are interested in learning exactly what he said can click those two hyperlinks to read his remarks in their entirety. The present piece won’t redundantly quote them but will analyze the importance of him endorsing India’s stance towards Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine.
Russia and India are special and privileged strategic partners whose historical relationship includes a significant emotional element that’s lost on most third-party observers. Their present ties function as an axis of stability in Eurasia during these presently chaotic times created by the US’ aggressive attempts to restore its declining unipolar hegemony over the world. India is presently being victimized by an American Hybrid War aimed at pressuring it to comply with that country’s demand for it to sacrifice its objective national interests for the US’ sake.
That campaign takes the form of political statements condemning India’s policy of principled neutrality as well as its media proxies’ weaponized information warfare narratives that attempt to discredit its stance, including by ridiculously claiming that it’s the result of so-called “Russian propaganda”. As the world’s second most populous country and one of its most promising emerging economies, India exerts significant influence over the Global South. Its principled neutrality serves as an example to all others that it’s indeed possible to successfully resist US pressure in pursuit of one’s own objective interests.
Russia is keenly aware of this and actually hopes to jointly cooperate with India all across the developing world in order to advance their unofficial policy of assembling a new Non-Aligned Movement (“Neo-NAM”) for creating a third pole of influence in the increasingly bi-multipolar world order. It was therefore to be expected that Russia’s top diplomat would so enthusiastically praise India’s independent foreign policy since he hopes that the rest of the world will take note and consider emulating it. That would be mutually beneficial for both Great Powers and accelerate preexisting multipolar trends.
The importance of Lavrov’s praise for India’s independent foreign policy therefore lies in the fact that it drew global attention to New Delhi’s policy of principled neutrality and its successful resistance to the US’ unprecedented multidimensional pressure campaign. It can be said without exaggeration that India’s brave stance enables that civilization-state to serve as a pressure valve from Western pressure for Russia, which in turn crucially prevents that Eurasian Great Power from becoming disproportionately dependent on China. That reinforces their strategic autonomy and thus serves their mutual interests.
