When visiting India in 1955, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev famously remarked in Srinagar, "We are so near that if ever you call us from the mountain tops, we will appear at your side." Khrushchev lost his post in 1964, but subsequent generations of leaders in New Delhi and Moscow kept the partnership between their two countries strong even after the Soviet Union’s dissolution. In fact, India has developed such extensive relations with post-Soviet Russia in political-diplomatic terms and military domains that the result is a strong bilateral strategic partnership. At the same time, however, the last two decades saw India build an increasingly strong relationship with the West in general and with the U.S. in particular (as, by the way, Russia pursued a close relationship with China). As a result, the war Russia launched earlier this year in Ukraine has confronted India with difficult strategic choices as it strives to balance relationships with Washington and with Moscow while competing with Beijing. However, such balancing should not prevent India from inferring lessons from the Russian-Ukrainian war, which will have significant long-term implications for India’s aforementioned balancing efforts.
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