David Sacks and Paul B. Stares
We recently returned from one week of meetings in New Delhi with a range of think tank experts, academics, and government officials. Our visit occurred following the Oval Office confrontation between Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump and coincided with negotiations between the United States and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia. The prospect of a U.S.-Russia rapprochement and a U.S.-China deal dominated our conversations. Below are five principal takeaways of what we heard about U.S.-India relations, how India sees its role in the Indo-Pacific, and how it plans to navigate a second Trump administration.
India views Trump’s pivot toward Russia as a vindication of its stance on the war in Ukraine.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, India refrained from signing on to multilateral sanctions and instead took advantage of the low price of Russian oil. Whereas Russian crude oil accounted for only one percent of India’s oil imports on the eve of the war, this has now surged to 40 percent, and Russia is currently India’s top supplier of crude oil. Russia and India also have a long-standing security relationship, with Russian equipment accounting for over 60 percent of India’s military hardware. Indian elites describe Russia as a trusted, reliable partner, with one scholar even describing Moscow to us as a “beacon of light.”
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