The Eurasia Opportunity

Context: If Indo-Pacific is India’s new maritime geopolitics, Eurasia involves the recalibration of India’s continental strategy. Thus, India needs a new, integrated approach to Eurasia. 

Challenges before India’s outreach to Eurasia

• No defined geographical region as Eurasia: Each country having different opinions. 
• Eg. Russia views Eurasia as region covering the former territories of Soviet Union. 
• Dramatic rise of China and growing strategic assertiveness:
• China has commercial influence across the world as world’s second-largest economy and occupies 15% of world trade.
• China’s Belt and Road initiative reaching across central Asia and Russia, onto the shores of the Atlantic, and Europe’s growing economies.
• US has begun to rethink its strategic commitments in Eurasia: Withdrawal from Afghanistan is just the beginning of a long-overdue process of redefining US’s global strategic priorities. 
• Whether defined as “burden-sharing” in Washington or “strategic autonomy” in Brussels, Europe must necessarily take on a larger regional Eurasian security role. 
• India’s policy limitations: India has certainly dealt with Eurasia’s constituent spaces separately over the decades.
• Geographical limitation: Access through Pakistan is blocked, alternative links through Iran and Afghanistan also faces severe uncertainties in present context.

Way Forward: Revamping India’s strategy towards Eurasia

• To put Europe back into India’s continental calculus: India’s Eurasian policy must necessarily involve greater engagement with both the EU and the NATO. 
• Dedicated military office in the Indian mission to Brussels will be a crucial step towards a sustained security dialogue with Europe.
• Intensify dialogue on Eurasian security with Russia: While Indo-Russian differences on the Indo-Pacific, the Quad, China, and the Taliban are real, India and Russia have good reasons to narrow their differences on Afghanistan and widen cooperation on continental Eurasian security.
• Substantive Indian collaboration with both Persia and Arabia: India’s partnerships with Persia and Arabia are critical in overcoming Turkey’s alliance with Pakistan that is hostile to India.

Conclusion: The current flux in Eurasian geopolitics will lessen some of the current contradictions and generate some new antinomies in the days ahead. But the key for India lies in greater strategic activism that opens opportunities in all directions in Eurasia.

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