The New Russian-Indian Military Logistics Pact Sends Five Messages To The World
Russia isn’t at risk of becoming a Chinese vassal nor is India at risk of becoming an American one.
Russia’s legal information portal recently published the details of last year’s “Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics Support” (RELOS) military logistics pact with India. RT’s Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retired) wrote a detailed analysis about it here, drawing attention to how it “allows for the simultaneous deployment of up to 3,000 troops, five warships, and ten aircraft to be stationed on each other’s soil.” There’s more to it, however, as this analysis will explain. Here are the five messages that RELOS sends to the world:
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1. Russia & India Remain Each Other’s Special & Privileged Strategic Partner
Pepe Escobar falsely claimed in mid-March that India “betrayed” Russia, yet that couldn’t be further from the truth after RELOS, which restores Russia’s Old Cold War-era permanent military presence in the Indian Ocean Region. Likewise, India will now obtain an unprecedented permanent military presence in the Russian Far East and Arctic if it so chooses, thus symbolizing the strength of their special and privileged strategic partnership. Speculation about a rift between them is therefore bonafide fake news.
2. Russia Is Preemptively Averting Disproportionate Dependence On China
Building upon the above, India’s military presence in Russia’s Far East is a matter of prestige for Delhi vis-à-vis Beijing even though there’s no chance that Moscow would authorize offensive operations from its territory. Nevertheless, the message to China and the rest of the world is clear, and it’s that Russia is preemptively averting disproportionate dependence on China. If it were already its vassal or on the way thereto as some claim, then Russia would never allow India to deploy its forces near the Chinese border.
3. Massive Japanese, South Korean, & Taiwanese Investments Might Follow
The Russian-US “New Détente” that’s being negotiated could see phased sanctions relief after the end of hostilities with Ukraine, which could lead to massive Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese investments in the resource-rich Russian Far East that Moscow just signaled isn’t a Chinese fief as some claimed. Knowing now for sure that Russia isn’t a Chinese vassal or on the way thereto as explained, they might then feel more comfortable investing at scale there, thus accelerating Russia’s “Pivot to Asia”.
4. Russia Won’t Let China Dominate The Arctic Like Some Claimed It Would
CNN and others have long fearmongered that Russia would let China dominate the Arctic upon becoming its vassal, hence the urgent need for NATO to militarize the region. That was never a credible scenario, however, but it’s now debunked due to RELOS allowing Western-friendly India to establish a military presence there if it wants one. India very well might do so too, not only for reasons of prestige (including vis-à-vis China), but to present itself as a responsible stakeholder in the Northern Sea Route.
5. India Has Now Become Russia’s Privileged Energy Partner In The Arctic
A key Chinese company pulled out of Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 megaproject in summer 2024 under Western sanctions pressure, which deeply disappointed some in Russia, who expected that the People’s Republic would show more of a spine in the face of these threats. With India now poised to establish a military presence in the Arctic, thus expanding their special and privileged partnership to this region, it’s expected to be given the first choice over all others for investments there once the sanctions are lifted.
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These five messages collectively show that Russia isn’t at risk of becoming a Chinese vassal nor is India at risk of becoming an American one. To the contrary, they’re once again relying on one another to preemptively avert the aforesaid scenarios through the strengthening of their complementary balancing acts, which takes the form of RELOS in this example. That military logistics pact therefore accelerates multipolar processes and thus reduces the chances of a future Sino-US bi-multipolar world order.
Dominating the Arctic Ocean North of the Eurasian Continent is a difficult business and a very expensive investment. The reason Russia was and is successful in this act is because they considered this a long-term project and their northern coastal areas are optimal springboards for this activity. The US, possibly in cooperation with Canada, Norway, Sweden and Iceland could use Greenland and Alaska as a staging point to enter maybe a third of the Arctic Ocean. However, this would assume giant investments into nuclear icebreakers but America is not even dreaming about anything like this presently. In other words Russia is light-years ahead, far advanced in Arctic exploitation and research.
As far as China and India is concerned they should be happy to be invited by the Russians to the party and China certainly has the money and can buy or develop the technology they would need. There is a degree of uncertainty around future fossil fuel use. Because of the high price pressure more and more efforts and money is chanelled into alternative possibilities and chances are in the next decade or two some of these systems will become functional. China, India and Russia clearly understand their geopolitical positions on this planet not like the US that is constantly engaging in desperate attempts to become a super-hegemonic structure while slowly loosing global influence. America and Israel are truly handling the rest of the world as America used to handle the Native population up to the early 20th century, alternating between extermination drives and patronization.
Interesting. As always.
That said, point 3 is not a message of this treaty; it’s just a hypothesis about its consequences.
Point 5 isn’t a message either and is quite biased. If Chinese companies pulled out of the Arctic energy project, India had already started to reduce its purchases of Russian oil before coming back to beg for it after the closure of Hormuz—and this under direct orders from the United States. I don’t see why Indian companies should receive more consideration than Chinese ones after the very hypothetical lifting of sanctions. Sanctions that will probably never be lifted