An ideal world for India would be one in which it has good relations with both of them, and those two, the US and Russia, also have good relations with each other. In this world, India could build defence ties with both the US and Russia, and its relations with either will not be looked at with suspicion by the other. However, even if it can attempt to build good relations with both Washington and Moscow, bilateral relations between those two are beyond New Delhi’s control.

Since independence, India has hardly ever enjoyed such an ideal world for its safety and prosperity. During the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union were two superpowers engaged in an intense security competition. Despite not wanting to choose sides, India was forced to do so—and it chose better relations with the Soviet Union over the US for a variety of reasons.

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This choice had mixed results. It did not work in 1962, when Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev was still hopeful of salvaging Sino-Soviet ties and hence chose to remain neutral in the China-India war despite fearing that New Delhi might defect to the Western camp as a result of China’s aggression. India’s choice, however, worked in 1971, when the Beijing-Moscow split was complete and the Soviet leadership did not hesitate to sign a quasi-military alliance with India to deter China. The lesson was that India needed a great power partner fully committed to balancing China.

After the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, India’s old choice set no longer existed. The US was now the sole great power. In 1991, it was not clear if China would truly emerge as a challenger to America’s global hegemony or if Russia would regain its old strategic power and reach. By the beginning of the new century, the contours of a new world order were beginning to emerge. Russia might gain back some of its old power and glory, but China was going to be the real contender for great power status. 

This world was more dangerous for India. New Delhi’s threat would now come not from a poverty-stricken People’s Republic, dangerous as it was, but from a China that sported a modernized military, giant economy and the status of a tech superpower. Russia was a shadow of the erstwhile Soviet Union and was increasingly reliant on Beijing. 

The saving grace for India was that its economy had begun doing well and it fielded a nuclear arsenal that came to acquire the capability to threaten Shanghai and Beijing with long-range missiles. However, the growing power deficit vis-à-vis China meant India still needed a great-power partner that saw a common interest in deterring Chinese aggression, if not mitigating other adverse implications of its rise.

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This was the logic that gave birth to an India-US strategic partnership. Since China was rapidly growing to become America’s strategic competitor, New Delhi and Washington had a shared interest in dealing with China’s rise and providing security in the Indo-Pacific. 

What about Russia, though? It is here that the interests of India and the US diverged. India still saw Russia as an important defence partner. The Indian armed forces needed Russian military platforms and Moscow was the only partner willing to part with certain assets that no one else would—for example, leasing a nuclear-powered attack submarine.

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The US, however, could not move beyond looking at Russia as an adversary. Of course, Russia continued to pose a threat to American allies in Europe, but one thought the US would shift the burden of European defence to its trans-Atlantic allies and shift focus to its bigger threat in the Indo-Pacific. 

If American attention and resources could be secured for Indo-Pacific security, a close-to-ideal setting could be obtained for India through the confluence of the following: a growing economy at home that could over time be converted into military power, a strategic partnership with a US that is committed to balancing China, a defence partnership with Russia that could part with high-tech weapons that no one else would, and, finally, a China-focused US that would not mind India-Russia defence cooperation. 

Perhaps this was too much to ask. The US has made the right noises and written stacks of strategy documents talking about shifting its focus to the Indo-Pacific. However, all this talk and text faltered at the first hurdle in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, while US strategy documents still talk about China, the actual American strategy targets Russia.

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Indians had by and large believed that the election of Donald Trump as US president would change Washington’s geo-strategic orientation and a change did seem to be happening for his first few months in office. As of August 2025, however, Trump is back to targeting Russia and has gone to the extent of punishing India for its ties with Moscow. 

Today, India faces a great power threat in China, a weakened Russia distracted by a war in Ukraine and a US bent on punishing it for its relations with Russia. Far from ideal, it’s closer to a nightmare.

The author is a Stanton Nuclear Security post-doctoral research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.