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Russian Roulette
The Russia-India Relationship with Tina Dolbaia and Vasabjit Banerjee
00:46:21
Max sat down with Tina Dolbaia and Vasabjit Banerjee to talk about their new CSIS paper, "Guns and Oil: Continuity and Change in Russia-India Relations." They delve into the history of the Russia-India relationship, how it's been impacted by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and what to watch for going forward.
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- [00:07]
A
Welcome back. I'm Max Bergman, Director of the Stuart center and Europe Russia Eurasia Program at csis. And you're listening to Russian Roulette, a podcast discussing all things Russia and Eurasia from the center for Strategic International Studies. Hello everyone and welcome back to Russian Roulette. I'm Max Bergman, recording without Maria today, but joined by two fantastic guests. The first is my dear colleague, Tina Delbaya. Tina is an Associate Fellow here at the CSIS Europe Russia and Eurasia Program where she focuses on Russian foreign policy and the Russian defense industry. Additionally, we're joined by Dr. Vasabjit Banerjee. He is an Assistant professor in the Political Science department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville where he studies the defense industrial policies and politics of South Asian states. Along with our former intern, Amanda Southfield, Tina and Dr. Banerjee recently co authored a new paper@csis.org titled Guns and Oil Continuity and Change in Russia India Relations. It's a fantastic piece of work. You can find a link to it in our show notes and I encourage everyone to give it a read. If you want sort of the Cliff Notes version, you can also see a piece they had in War on the Rocks, which we'll also put in the show notes. And Today, Tina and Dr. Banerjee will discuss the paper's main findings and why the Russia India relationship is so important to understanding contemporary geopolitics. So let's jump right in. Tina, maybe we'll start with you. Why don't you give us an overview of the main findings in your paper and what are the kind of key nodes of the Russia India relationship presently?
- [01:51]
B
Yeah, thank you so much, Max. It's nice to be here as a guest. Actually, to your question of what are the main keynotes of Russia India relationship? In the paper we highlight two of them. These are the defense ties and the energy one. What we try to convey in our paper is that this relationship between Russia and India started a long time ago, especially when it comes to their defense ties. It started in the 1950s and obviously Banerjee will go into detail about this particular aspect of their relationship. But from the 1950s onward, the Soviet Union and then Russia has played a significant role in India's defense industry. And even currently up to 60% of India's weapon systems, from tanks to fighter jets to nuclear capable submarine, all of these are Soviet Russian origin. And then we also discuss energy ties between Russia and India, even though many nowadays think that these relations between New Delhi and Moscow began post2022. What we highlight in paper, what we found is that India and Russia, well back then Soviet Union had stronger energy ties in the 1980s, 1970s, 1980s as well. And that's something that we also highlight in the paper. And obviously that relationship collapsed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But we have been hearing this argument that India's energy ties strengthened significantly, got ramped up after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But we say that this type of relationship existed in the Soviet Union as well. And in fact According to US intelligence estimates in the early 1980s, like 70% of India's commercial imports from USSR were comprised of crude oil and petroleum products. So this significant relationship even back then existed between these two countries. And like one last thing just to highlight is that we really wanted to stress this underappreciated aspect of Soviet Indian historical ties that even today plays a very significant role in the relations that the two have.
- [03:59]
A
Banerjee, maybe you could elaborate on that, the historical ties a bit because you know, I think after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many here in the United States and in Europe looked at India and said why isn't India sort of joining with the west, you know, and condemning Russia in very aggressive terms. Why are they still trading with Russia? And there's a lot of history to this, some of which goes back to where my mother in law is from in Calcutta and the split between east and West Pakistan and then the positions that the United States took during the Cold War. But maybe you could talk a little bit about the relationship between India and the Soviet Union, Russia and in the some of the history behind this relationship because it's fairly well developed.
- [04:39]
C
Well that's a very deep question. So firstly, there's a historical ideological relationship, much has been written on it between sort of socialist leaning India as a democratic country with a pure socialist economy, more like a NEP economy really. New economic policy economy for about 40, 50 years after independence and the Soviet Union, so on and so forth. I'm not going to put too much time on it because so much has been written on it, the ideological affinities between Soviet Russia and India. Rather I would talk about the institutional sort of penetration of India by Russia which has a historical angle to it which is ignored quite often by people specifically in the defense industry where Russia set up a lot of these Indian industries. I mean they were set up to license produce Russian gear. So what happens is the Russian mode of manufacturing, the way the production lines work is something that the Indians take over. That's the way the Indians learn to produce their fighter jets and so on and so forth. Now this results in a weird situation where the Indians are aware that the Western technology is better, but the preferred mode of actual scaling production, mass manufacturing, is that of Russian production. So there's that. The other thing is the history of rational choice sort of perspective iterated interactions for arms sales, in fact, for any business relationships, you build credibility with repeated interactions. And there have been repeated interactions over decades between first Soviet officials and then they took off their red scarves and put on black ties. The Russian officials, some of the same people. So this was the sort of the history, the industrial history as well as the interpersonal history. Some of the same people in the foreign services were involved and they have experiences from the Soviet period, especially in the late Soviet period, currently speaking. And so they are aware of Russia in a very sort of personal way which then leads, and I would say that's just human, affects their decision making and their perspective on Russia. The other thing is India sees itself akin to a regional power in which Russia features as a balance toward China. And that's been at the foundational part of their relationship. And so again, there's this historical bit to it because, you know, Russia versus China is something that goes back several hundred years. It's not new. And so India sees that as something sort of, they call geopolitics and sort of the Russians being involved in trying to contain China and so on and so forth. So it's a melange of factors. The historical ones are better known, but the industrial penetration of Russia into India's defense industrial sector. And Tina highlighted this very well, the history of supplying oil as well as other things. Like we realized through this research project actually that Russia is one of the biggest suppliers of fertilizer to India. And Russia also has been willing to share things like, you know, nuclear technology with India over a long period of time. So this is the history. And it's not just about ideology, it's also about institutional factors.
- [07:41]
A
You titled the paper Guns and Oil. And so maybe we can drill down a bit on the guns part. You know, one of the first things I sort of engaged with when I joined the State Department roughly, you know, almost 15 years ago now, was the US losing out in an India fighter competition to those awful French. The India chose the French. Rafale, maybe you could talk a little bit about, you know, India really over the last few decades seeking to diversify away from Russia, expand its acquisition of Western defense equipment, while the US lost the fighter competition. We've won a lot of other competitions, the defense trade with India has really increased. Maybe two questions there. What is the strategic thinking behind this sort of shift in the Indian government and where are we now in India's defense mix? Is it weaned itself off of Russian equipment? I think the answer is no. But maybe you could talk a little bit about how the relationship with the west has sort of evolved at least over the last 15, 20 years.
- [08:36]
C
So I'm going to start with the second question and then go to the first one. India has tried to wean itself off Russian equipment since 2014. The declines in new acquisitions have been quite marked. Western equipment. So by which I mean French and American equipment and becoming more and more prominent. The outcome of the latest submarine, conventional diesel electric submarine with air independent propulsion is going to go to a German company. So that would mean in about 10 to 15 years, India's entire conventional fleet will be NATO, which is, if you know the history of India's conventional submarine program, that is incredible because it's, you know, it starts off with the Soviets and now it's going to be a purely NATO sort of run system or license produced in India. So there's that. So they're weaning away. Now to the first question. The answer to that first question is India's position has been stable for 60 years. We are unaware of it in some ways or choose to ignore it, which is India wants affordable weapons are cheap weapons. They want them in quantity and they want them fast, rapid delivery. The fourth thing that India aspires to do, unlike, you know, very few states do this, is they want to manufacture it domestically. Now in the past, until 1991, I would argue the west was on an equal footing with the Soviets to offer affordable weapons. Sometimes they were legacy weapons that we no longer needed. We were willing to sell them off. Occurrence prices, I get that. But for the last 30 years, the west, especially the United States and Britain, have been unwilling because they don't have anything to offer, they don't have anything on the shelves. The French have kept it up somewhat. So the issue with India has been affordability and rapid delivery. Now rapid delivery is where the Russians take a beating because there have been constant issues with the Russians, with delays. Now where the Russians have an advantage is essentially they can sell them affordable stuff and they can sell them en masse, large numbers of them. There is some endogeneity in the sense that it's related, you know, how many you can afford depends on what the price is in layman's terms. But the Russians have been able to do that. And so India has been able to buy that. Now there is one other thing that's becoming more and more critical in the India Russia relationship as the numbers decline, as India gets to more and more platforms from NATO members, which is Russia is willing to offer India certain technologies that NATO countries are still unwilling to offer. So this is about the nuclear submarine propulsion systems. For example. We know that India's nuclear submarine program has major Russian sort of influences and participation and collaboration. Russia is also willing to offer deals such as co production. Now sometimes they're falling through because the tech issues are so severe, for example, with the SU57 that they're falling through. But Russia is still ahead when it comes to offering India with technology, which may not be as good as NATO technology, but given India's threat environment with China, but especially Pakistan, which is a lesser developed country, is more than sufficient for India. So it's shifting ironically from a situation where it was give it to us cheap, give us lots of it and give it to us on time because we have two fronts that we need to take care of to one where these are technologies that the US and UK and France are unwilling to sell us. And Russia is the only one that's offering us.
- [12:00]
A
Thank you for that. That's a, I think a great overview. I mean one of the challenges for the United States is you mentioned our weapons systems became very expensive and yet we have a whole security assistance framework. But actually that security assistance framework is if you take Israel out of the mix, is largely focused on not middle income countries but much lower income countries. And India doesn't really fit there. And it's US companies sort of saw it as India more as a market. And so we don't provide defense financing in a way that the Russians do. And the UK and the French offer financing. So you can buy French or UK weapons and then there's a loan that comes with it that doesn't exist anymore in the US we used to do it mainly during the Cold War period, but evolved away from it. But Tina, I wonder if, you know, when we look at the Indian military though, it's so deeply rooted in Russian Soviet equipment that it sort of says something about how hard it is to sort of make a transition away or off of Russian equipment. So if we're asking the Indians to sort of be cut off of Russian equipment, it's sort of like telling Europeans to stop, you know, using American weapon systems, which is, you know, fundamental to how Europe would defend itself. Is that how you see it?
- [13:12]
B
I feel like there is the stated willingness to in India to shift away from Russian equipment and the reliance on Russia. But obviously they want to do that gradually. That has been something that has been happening since 1980s, 1990s. But because of the reasons that Banerjee has just highlighted, affordability also the option to pay in Indian rupees that is probably huge for New Delhi and also the ability to produce this equipment in India, I think all of these requirements India had that Russia was willing to meet one way or another has encouraged India to purchase more Russian weapons. And obviously you are not just purchasing weapons, right? You also are purchasing services because these weapons need to maintenance and upgrade. So you're also purchasing all these things from Russia. But again because of their long held dependence on Russia, India have also realized that this dependence comes with certain type of leverage that Russia has exercised in different times over India. So this is something that India because of the reason that Banerjee has highlighted wants to get rid of eventually or reduce. But this will take time and it will obviously take funds and resources and same. I mean we are talking about defense ties. But to be honest, that is my impression that like India has a similar attitude towards purchases of Russian crude. Right now they are doing that because this is basically this has been an opportunistic grab for them because it's cheaper. Russian crude currently is I think around like from 5 to $10 cheaper than Middle Eastern one for India to buy. But over time because they know they have learned from histories that they are the over reliance on Russia. How comes definitely with some specific leverage that Russians can exercise over Indians. There will be also an incentive among the Indian elites to reduce their dependence on Russian crude as well with time obviously. And one last thing that I would say, and I think Banerjee can speak more to this is that there has been a wider push in the defense industry for India to pivot away from Russian weapons. And this has become more widespread since 2014 and obviously since 2022. And one issue has been obviously delays. Russians have repeatedly delayed deliveries of weapons that they promised to the Indians. But also the quality of these weapons have also deteriorated with time or have not met the rising standard that the Indian army has.
- [15:48]
A
Banerjee, over to you. I mean, because it does seem how does Russia continue to export weapons when it needs these weapons? My understanding, you know, we did a report on Russia's arms exports I think last year that basically France has jumped Russia as this now the second largest arms exporter. So how is Russia exporting India and is Not a real reason. India needs to wean itself off Russian arms because they simply can't rely on the supply.
- [16:10]
C
Let me put a rejoinder to that statement. Actually. The Russian market is fragmented. We had an article in National Interest about it. So the market, the Russia leaves behind the map, market space is fragmented now. So France has taken over the higher end of that market, but China is taking over the entire lower end of the market. So China has replaced Russia as the top supplier to Africa, for example. This was last year or year before last. It's replaced. It's a huge deal. I met someone and when I said that this was very senior official and they were shocked. They said, I can't believe it. And it's, you know, in the age of Google, I mean, here it is. This is the data. It was, you know, one of those moments in time. But quality issues with Russian equipment go back to the 1970s and 80s. For example, India knew about the jack in the box effective to the autoloader in Russian tanks. This is the reason why India's domestically manufactured tank was based on a German design, because they knew that this was an issue. India was aware that some of the MIGs, I think it was the MIG 23 maybe or the 27 that Russia was supplying, had a technical issue that they were unable to resolve right from the factory. There was some suspicion that Russia had sort of disabled that system anyway, so these things were known. There were major delivery schedule issues in the early 1990s as the Soviet industrial complex collapsed. And then India patched it up with some really deft diplomacy. So, for example, they would get hulls for ships for the frigates, the Kriva class frigates made in Russia with the naval propulsion system installed in Ukraine. This was done by India sort of trying informally to put these things together. So again, this was known. The only reason sukhoi makes the SU30 is because the Indians got that huge contract with them in the early 1990s. That's why they're still in business. And so India has faced these issues. The question is, why isn't India learning? This is the real puzzle. India has faced low quality. India has faced delivery troubles before in the 1990s and low quality since the 19. I would say since the 1970s and 80s. In fact, during our research, you know, Tina and I, we found out that the Indians were dissatisfied with the quality of Russian weapons going back to the late 1970s. And this was the first effort at turning away from Russia back to Western suppliers, back to NATO suppliers at that point of time. So the question really is elsewhere is like, despite the problems, why is India then sticking to Russia? Now? This has changed in 2014, as I mentioned, but still the legacy footprint of Russia is so much, you know, India still operates thousands of T72s and T90s. It's very difficult to get away. And what Tina was saying, I want to add that sustainment is key. What Russian systems offer are simplicity, they're easier to sustain, they're lower cost to sustain, whilst NATO counterparts are difficult to sustain. And Russia also delivers India the wherewithal to sustain them, at least domestically, which is with entire domestic human resources and so on and so forth. So these are additional things that makes Russia attractive. But the main things that you highlighted were known for a long time, which makes me wonder why exactly they're sticking to this.
- [19:22]
A
I want to pivot to oil, but I have one more follow up on this because it does strike me that the sanctions regimes that have been put in place to deprive Russia of a lot of the advanced tech and chips and other things like that should be filtering through and impacting that quality of weapon system. Particularly if India is trying to move to slightly to a higher tech level and weapon systems now are much more technologically advanced. Maybe this is something to just watch and monitor as the years go by. But I'm curious, there have been any signs of the Indians being like, oh my God, we're getting some shipments in, but the quality has really gone downhill. Are there any signs of sort of sanctions biting Russia's ability to export here?
- [20:02]
C
Max, you've hit the nail on the head. That's a million dollar question. I suspect that the situation with the Indian military is way worse than it is letting on because it's not just about new kit like the S400. That's what he called the gold plated kit that we all know about. But it's also about key spare parts, engines for existing aircraft. And if there are no domestic alternatives and Russia is not supplying them, you are onto something big here. I think the issue is that there's a brave face being put on by New Delhi about the actual situation with its forces.
- [20:37]
A
The first rule of having a robust military that's surrounded by two threats is you don't talk about all the things that are going wrong, at least very outwardly. But let's maybe shift to oil. Tina, maybe back to you. Before Russia's invasion, my understanding is India was not importing a lot of Russian oil that increases dramatically with the war. Was this part of this was by design Right. The Biden administration setting up the oil price cap, essentially meaning that Russia could sell its oil. Russian oil is kept on the market by administration worried about oil gas prices here at home as well as inflation. The hope was that India would get a good deal out of this and they would be able to buy oil from Russia at a cut rate. India does well, Russian revenue is reduced. Russian oil on the market. So global oil prices are in effect. How has that worked out? Did the oil price cap work in that sense?
- [21:28]
B
Yeah, I mean you're absolutely right. That's, that's exactly what happened. So before the war, as I mentioned, so in the 80s, you know, India purchased significant amount of Russian crude or Soviet crude. Then once the Soviet Union collapsed, its relationship also collapsed and India switched to Middle Eastern suppliers, no uae, Saudi Arabia. And the relationship that it had with Russia in the energy sector became almost non existent. Like in 2021, India was purchasing around only 2% of India's purchases of crude came from Russia. And it was around like 2.3 billion barrels from Russia basically. So this was like a very, very marginal number. Obviously once the war began and European Union and the G7 country, they imposed this $60 price cap, everything changed. And what you said about the Biden administration and their rationale is absolutely correct. That's exactly what happened. Back then the Biden administration had these two goals. One was to carb Russia's energy revenues, but another one was to make sure that oil prices did not skyrocket and that the US economy and oil prices in the US were not also impacted. That would also impact Biden administration itself. And that is where India came in. And that's why India's purchases of Russian oil were maybe not openly encouraged, but neither were they openly discouraged. Now with the 50% tariff, it's something that India has used as an argument heavily saying that the previous U.S. administration kind of encouraged us to buy Russian oil and now the rationale is so different. So they have called this 50% tariffs unfair in this sense. So currently around 40% of crude that India purchases comes from Russia and that in 2024 I think it was like 53 billion. So it was like a huge amount from 2 billion to 53. And the key point that we like Banerjee and I found out during our research was that significant amount. Over 50% of Russian crude imports to India go to private oil refineries. So they obviously, the state owned oil refineries also purchased Russian oil. But over 50% of that goes to two privately owned Indian refineries. It is the Reliance Industries and there is Naira Energy. Naira Energy is partially Russia owned, so it is explainable. But with the Reliance Industries, it has become one of the most significant purchaser of Russian crude oil since 2022. And also what we found out that was super interesting is that basically 80 or to 90% of the oil to Europe that went from these two companies that went from India to Europe were from these two specific companies, Reliance Industries and Naira Energy. Obviously, this may change with this new sanctions package that European Union has just introduced that will take effect in January and that prohibits import of refined oil product from third country, Russian refined oil products from third countries. But still, you know, this was like a significant discovery that we also made. Unclear what's going to happen with the new tariffs now, because I actually checked the data for the last three months in the imposition of 50% tariffs. And for instance, from July through September, Russia has remained top oil importer for India. And India has been importing like around 1.8 million barrels per day from Russia since July 2025. So not that much has changed in India's oil purchases since the imposition of tariffs. But yes, I mean, this is a really complicated topic to address. I think in theory, as I mentioned before, there was a widespread understanding among the Indian analyst and energy experts that we spoke to for the paper that it would be within India's goal to reduce purchases of Russian oil over time because they do realize that when it comes to overreliance on, on Russia, this can become dangerous with time. So I think there was an understanding within the Indian energy expert community that they would reduce purchases of Russian oil with time. But I think when they were talking about that, they meant maybe like a year or two year period, they did not think that this would, you know, like they would be asked to drastically reduce purchases of Russian oil within like days or weeks.
- [25:56]
A
Thanks N. That's a fantastic overview. I sort of buried the lead in this whole conversation because part of it is, you know, this effort by the Trump administration, at least rhetorically, get India to stop buying Russian oil to put pressure on Vladimir Putin. But this is also caught up in the whole U.S. india trade negotiations, which much like trade negotiations with the eu, Japan, Korea, whoever are, you know, complicated and both sides are sort of bickering over and this has sort of been caught up in it. But there was this dramatic visit by Modi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization with Xi and Putin, Kim Jong Un, and I think it was viscerally a lot of reaction in the west that, you know, here's an Indian democracy sort of showing up with these autocratic governments. And so, Benji, I wanted to bring you in, to bring in that kind of geopolitical context, what is happening right now in the US India relationship. And it sort of seems like we're setting it on fire, sort of over oil, but probably over trade. I'm curious what your take is on the US India relationship. And then how is this leading India to sort of pivot away from the US Again back towards Russia and make amends with China. What do you see happening geopolitically taking place here?
- [27:08]
C
First, I want to add something to what Tina said. It's this Reliance angle. Reliance's relationship with Russia goes back many years, including certain relationships with President Putin himself. So this. And I was actually, while she was talking, I was googling up some of these old ones, trying to find out. I know this because there were certain defense related issues about 10 years ago or so, 10, 15 years ago. And so the real question is whether it's India that's going back to your question about the Trump administration setting it on fire or not. The issue is that India providing for its people is not a problem. India maintaining world prices at a stable level is not a problem. India making bank, or rather India not making bank, but particular politically connected industrialists making bank, and the Russian government making bank by a refinery set up in India in which actually the majority stakeholders is Rossnet, which is Naira. That is definitely a problem. And when we talked to folks in India who are energy experts, customers are not seeing the lower price being reflected at the pump. So where is the money going? I'm assuming India is increasing its foreign currency reserves. But we cannot deny the fact that two of the major players, 50%, as Tina said of the oil, one is a private billionaire and oligarch who's very close to the Modi administration and the other is the Russian government itself. So thus there arises some major issues about this.
- [28:44]
A
You mean major issues for India, major ethical issues.
- [28:47]
C
I mean, let's just be real, you know, and you can say, well, I constantly hear this idea that India is a real politic. Well, you could be real politic if you say, yes, we have the economy of the United States or we have the economy of China, but if you want to be real politic, then you have to bring the economic heft. And despite sort of the cheerleading that goes on about Indian economy, Indian economy is. Doesn't have that capacity to get away with that kind of things. I'm sorry, but that's just the reality of it. I mean, if China is a superpower, the United States is a superpower. And unfortunately, India doesn't have that. Have. And there are two entities within the Indian system, one directly linked to Russia. And that's why I'm talking about the Russian penetration of Indian institutions as well as. The other is an oligarch with old connections to Russia, connected also to the Indian government at present, who are making enormous amounts of money. Now, the Trump administration approach has been, one could say, well, bringing a hammer in, you know, everything you see is a nail. But you have to give them some credit for a noble intention, because there is profiteering going on. The Indians can argue that. Look, you know, we were told that this was okay and this would maintain world prices. And I've even heard people saying, oh, well, you should be thankful to us for doing this for you. That's okay. But you're not supposed to be making bank on this. This was supposed to be, you know, you sort of in it. And that's what's happened. And here's the thing. If the Indian government was making bank on it and passing it on to the Indian consumers, Indian customers, Indians helping India economically develop with cheaper energy prices, I would say, okay, we can bite the bullet because we can see India as a counterweight to China. This will help India get further. But the customers are not seeing anything at the petrol station. And we now know that Russia owns one of the refineries and an oligarch owns the other. That's 50%. You know, you have the numbers right. And so this is wrong. And I, I think the Biden administration was willing to look away, and the Trump administration is not willing to look away. But there is something to this.
- [30:51]
A
It looks like EU sanctions as well is targeting this, since a lot of the refined oil products were going back to the eu. Is the sense that that will have an impact? Do you think that could have an impact? And then maybe. Where do we see this headed? Do we see India doubling down on Russia or pivoting back? One thing I would have hoped to see from the Trump administration is that, okay, you're waging the hammer around at the Indians, but what are you offering? It seems like we're really just asking the Indians to make concessions to us, but perhaps it would be on itar issues so that our control of technology, when we sell weapon systems, maybe we reduce some of the barriers. We express a willingness to sell a lot of the things that we weren't going to sell or going to the Gulf states and saying, can you increase production, increase deliveries and sales to India? Is that something that would be on the table? So I guess where is India headed? And are there other things that perhaps the Trump administration or European Union or others could be doing to maybe help India reduce its purchases of Russian oil?
- [31:53]
B
I had this private conversation with Banerjee about the current relationship of US and India. I think we compared this to like Hollywood meeting the Bollywood, the drama unfolding around this relationship. I think this was like a funny comparison. I think eventually my take of this is that especially the news that are coming out from the recent trade negotiations that Indians and Americans are having right now is that there will be probably some concessions on both sides. I think India is ready to make specific concessions on Russian oil purchases going forward. Again, we are not seeing any serious or any like significant reductions in Russians could purchase this for the specific time period from July to like September, but going forward from October, November, this may change. And one of these indications of this, for instance, was that I believe Indians in recent negotiations asked Americans for permission to purchase oil either from Venezuela or from Iran. I'm not really sure whether the Trump administration will agree to this requirement Indians have right now. But my sense is that Indians are willing to with time to reduce purchases of Russian crude. But obviously they want to make sure that the Middle Eastern crude that they are buying, for instance, as you have said, matches price wise to the Russian barrel than they were buying. So there will be, obviously there will be some serious negotiations that they will have to have. But in my opinion, they are probably moving towards reconciliation. But this won't result in India halting purchases of Russian oil overnight. But probably they will agree on a specific time frame within which that could become possible. And again, just one last point about this that I want to make is that India did not increase its purchases of Russian oil like overnight when the war started and when the $60 price cap was introduced. That also took some time. So I assume it will also take some time for Reliance Industries or for state owned Indian refineries to decouple from Russia. So yeah, I think it's a matter of time.
- [34:03]
C
I think the issue is the United States has to offer substitutes like you're saying. So it's easy to say go off Russian oil, but then the Indian economy has to work. So where is India going to get it? This is a nuts and bolts issue. And I think if there is a permanent resolution to the Venezuelan crisis in the short run in a positive direction to U.S. foreign policy interests, maybe that Venezuelan Crude will enter the international market and India can partake of it freely. And I'm aware that the Venezuelan crude is not as great of quality as the Urals that Russia sells to India. It's not the same, but India can make do. But US has switched off. You know, there's sanctions on Iran, the sanctions on Venezuela, the sanctions on Russia. At some point of time, something has to give. You can't just like continuously like restrict access. Something has to give there. And I agree with Tina about there being sort of a timeframe within which India will reduce purchases. But there's also other aspects to it, right? Fertilizers, for example, weapons. India cannot just decouple without substitutes. And I think that is the problem with. And I think that the Trump administration needs to understand it because no country will. This is not an Indian issue. It's the rational thing. If your security is at stake and core economic issues are at stake, you can't just say, I'm not going to buy fighter jets from Russia because there's nothing else that you can replace it with. So you have to say, okay, if you are going to give up on X, Y, Z, here are certain alternatives that I'm willing to give it to you. And Max, you know this, you talked about this cheap, in large quantities and on time. And that's why we suggested in our article for the weapons bit that the United States cannot do this right now because of the commitments it has with other NATO allies and non NATO major non NATO allies, as well as the current condition of its defense industrial base. We're not presenting any new information here. It's all, all of these things are well known. So the United States should coordinate with NATO partners who are also in a similar bind and therefore create a package for India where there are certain NATO coordination mechanisms where France wants to supply Rafah's and Rafales has American components which, which may be on itar, so on and so forth. It has an expedited process for India, the same with any kit from Britain or any kit from Germany. And similarly, if there are things that the United States can sell and there are German components, they should do the same. But a NATO level sort of coordination mechanism and certain special access for India, you know, it's in terms of defense technology transfers, ITAR and so on and so forth that would do that for them. On the other hand, I think about the energy, again, as Tina said, maybe special permissions to get that oil from Iran or perhaps get that oil from Venezuela. And this goes back to sort of, I Hate to do this, but Kissingerian interlinkage, maybe that could help out with US Iran negotiations. If Iran could get, you know, its supplies to India restarted, maybe that would help Iran as well as help in there and get in there off of Russian oil. So these kinds of interlinkages have to be made in order to provide India with the substitutes. A stick works, but you also have to give carrots. India's demands are perfectly legitimate because it cannot watch its economy collapse. Neither can it watch its two fronts. And we've just had a confrontation with Pakistan earlier this year and you've had a four year long standoff with China. So it cannot give up on either of these without appropriate alternatives.
- [37:33]
A
I would also think that this is where the Trump administration's strong relations with the Saudis and the UAE should come into play. You know, the Biden administration, if they had gone to the Saudis and said increase oil production to sell it to India so we can take Russia off the market, I don't know if that would have gone very well, but I would think there would be some headway there with Trump. I'm sort of speculating here, not being an expert on how quickly it is to sort of turn on and turn off oil production, but I would think that would be another pathway, one other kind of broader question to bring this back to sort of geopolitics. One thing I've been looking at is the EU and India have actually increased their relationship. They're steaming ahead trying to get EU India trade agreement done by the end of the year. This is something the EU has been doing with countries around the world sort of pivoting away from the United States. And when it comes to defense production, the Europeans are about to throw a ton of money at their defense industries trying to build up their defense industrial bases, which I think over time will probably lead to greater production, greater ability to sell. And I think India would make a lot of sense. I guess the question here is where is India sort of going from a foreign policy trajectory? Is there, you know, strategy to sort of make nice with China, maintain the Russia relationship, maintain relations with the US Maybe pivot to engage Europe? Is it sort of hedge all around? Do they put a lot of stock in the quad? Now this is a big open ended question, but I think the SEO summit raised a lot of questions here in Washington about where is India going? And maybe as a final question to you, Banerjee, where do you see India sort of headed? Do you see any shifts that have happened or is this just sort of a Consistent India policymaking. It's just suddenly Western folks like me are sort of coming in and saying, oh, you know, where's India going? So where is India going? Is the sort of wrap up final huge unanswerable question that I want to throw to you. And then Tina, please chime in as well.
- [39:23]
C
I would say that India is where it has always been. Indian troops liberated Jerusalem from the Ottomans in the First World War. Indian troops garrisoned Iraq. Indian troops provided security all across the Middle East. Indian troops fought in North Africa, Indian troops fought in France. India has been, even under colonization, a sub imperial power where there were constant irritation in London about the Viceroy going his own way and the, the Lord of War, Lord Kitchener, and after that the reorganization going their own way. India has always been a special entity. I mean it's never been a fully colonized place. It's even at the apex of the British Empire, the height of the apogee. India's had its own preferences and, and its preferences extend from Singapore to Aden. And they it considers itself that is India's baliwick. And I'm using it in the traditional way, not in a metaphorical way. That is India's baliwick. And it has developed connections with East Africa. It has developed connections with Southern Africa. So the United States must see it that way. It doesn't fit the modern idea of superpowers because that is a very regional power construct. This is India's area. Now you could go around and you can say, well, you know, I stake claim to X area and Y area. You could project power in those areas. But India considers this its value. India is not interested in Brazil. India is not interested in creating bases in Morocco or perhaps even Djibouti, but within that. And that requires a different mindset to handle India, which even the British recognized because of its people, the numbers of people it has and the size of its economy and literally the size of its military. India has those traditional sort of power things and the US needs to be aware of that. On the other hand, what kind of hedging is it when you're walking a tightrope? I hear about strategic, India's strategic autonomy. Well, strategic autonomy is not walking a tightrope. Walking a tightrope means you actually have no autonomy whatsoever. So it's ironic in that sense. And the United States is one of India's top trading partners. The problem is that China is also one of its top trading partners, the top two trading partners. On the other hand, India has territorial issues and territorial disputes with China, which it does not have with the United States. And it has managed to handle this with some space saving things. We know that India has lost territory to China despite claims. So the question really is the question that bedeviled France in the 1870s through the early 1900s, which is, can India reach a modus vivendi with China ceding territory to China? And if it can, then it will go with China. But it seems, given the vicissitudes of democratic politics, somebody stands at Red Fort in New Delhi and says, I've ceded this land to China. It's all okay. We are doing well economically, might have a very short political future. So there's that. I believe that India ultimately will go its own way in terms of its regional power imperatives. And it is for us not to seek from India what we seek from, say, India, the Netherlands, unfortunately, or Mexico, but rather negotiate with India on its own terms, understanding that it has certain regional imperatives that it has historically taken care of, and it's not interested. The thing is that if you really talk to folks in the Indian establishment about the Indian imaginary, there's a lot of talk about soft power and being a great power and so on and so forth. But in terms of political sort of domination, in military domination and sort of, it's bailiwick, where the Indian navy sails and sort of maintains order. It's effectively the Indian Ocean and it's from Singapore to Aden. And I think that that does not or should not get in the way of the United States interests. In fact, I would argue that the US Interest would be well served if we can have somebody who is not China, whose interests are directly opposed to that of China, managing that area of the world. And I will end with a problematic example. India is akin to South Africa in the 60s, 70s, and 80s in terms of Western interests. I know a lot of people wouldn't like to hear that, but there were negotiations with South Africa, and NATO did have a listing post in Simons Town, and South African navy did maintain order in and around that area. It's a difficult pill to swallow because. Especially because the Indians were at the forefront of the anti apartheid movement. But I'm not talking about domestic politics. I'm talking about international relations. And in that, India is very similar. India has its regional prerogatives, and they do align with the United States, and I would argue Europe as well. Thank you.
- [44:05]
A
To bring this back to Russia, you know, and what I think we're all after, which is we just want India to stop buying Russian oil so the Russian economy tanks and this war can end. It seems like we're kind of a long way from that and that this would be a more gradual process of weaning India off both Russian arms that would take much longer and Russian oil, which could happen seemingly pretty quickly, but years, not months.
- [44:26]
B
Yes, Max, you have summarized it perfectly. That's something that I also wanted to say. I think Eastern European in me is very happy when I hear that US Administration, current US Administration, was too serious about going up Russia's oil revenues. I'm super excited about that. But obviously what we tried to present with our paper is that in case of India, this has to happen over time, gradually and obviously alternatives have to be presented as Banerjee has already discussed. That's something that we wanted to show for in our paper. India is a very important partner as US starts to prioritize Indo Pacific as a region so obviously should also be presented along with sticks.
- [45:09]
A
Well, I want to thank you both. This conversation has been fascinating from I think a grand historical perspective to getting into the weeds of Indian oil refinery politics and potential corruption. Potential corruption. Don't want to say it definitively, but I want to thank you both for being here. But unfortunately we're going to leave it there. As always, a big thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to our show and please give us a five star rating. They really help people find the show. Additionally, don't forget to check out our sister podcast, the Europile, wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you next time on Russian Roulette.
- [45:44]
B
Thank you. You've been listening to Russian Roulette. We hope you enjoyed this episode and tune in again soon.
- [45:56]
A
Russian Roulette releases new episodes every two weeks on Thursdays and is available wherever you get your podcasts. So please subscribe and share our episodes online.
- [46:06]
B
And be sure to check out all the latest analysis by the Europe, Russia and eurasia program@csis.org.