A few years ago, when External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was queried about India’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war and its alleged inability to condemn the invasion unequivocally, he replied: “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.”
His statement was about pointing out Europe’s hypocrisy in demanding support where its interests were threatened while making no reciprocal gestures when there were threats to other countries elsewhere. But as a rising midi power, India needs to reconsider the proposition that it must only concern itself with its own immediate interests. In a world that is fracturing and becoming more transactional in alliances and trade cooperation, India has to up its game in global diplomacy and involve itself more directly and indirectly in reducing great power rivalries, including facilitating the resolution of conflicts which have a direct bearing on its own medium to long-term interests.
Let’s consider the Ukraine-Russia war. It is not in our interest to support the western effort to defeat Russia, but it is not in our interest to let Ukraine go under too, since that would bring about permanent enmity between Europe and Russia. This would not only drive Russia much closer to China (to our detriment), but also make the US and Europe grow more hardline on Indian interests. They would want us to choose between Russia and the west, though Donald Trump has done his best to drive a wedge within his own post-war European alliance, including Nato.
While India cannot immediately wade into the Ukraine-Russia conflict to bring about peace, we must start thinking about what we want in Eurasia – especially how Europe and Russia can be made to work together.
A bit of history and geopolitical reality is in order here.
Russia is more a European power than an Asian one. Most of its population lives to the west of the Urals, and Russian cultural development was more influenced by Europe than Asia.
Before the two world wars, Russia was regularly aligned with some European power or the other. Before the 1890s, Russia was part of the League of Three Emperors, which included Germany and Austro-Hungary. After that, there was a Franco-Russian alliance in 1894, and this developed into a triple entente with Great Britain joining the alliance to contain Germany’s growing power in combination with Italy and Austro-Hungary. The most infamous alignment came before the Second World War, when Nazi Germany and Communist Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The pact, named after the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, included a non-aggression pact, an agreement on expanding trade cooperation, and a secret protocol to divide Poland between themselves.
The point is, before America entered the picture as Europe’s guarantor after the two world wars, Russia and Europe have had alliances that included security and trade.
The post-War scenario, when the Soviet Union created its Warsaw Pact and the western alliance Nato, was an exception to the historical reality of Russia being a part of European politics and security. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, what was natural before the two World Wars must become more feasible now. Especially when Trump has made it clear that Europe can do what it wants for its own security. It is perhaps time to go back to the historical reality.
It is in India’s interests to directly or indirectly promote some kind of compromise between Russia and the European Union, provided Ukraine is not asked to make all the sacrifices. It may, though, have to agree to lose some of its territory (the Donbas region) and accept neutrality between the west and Russia. Having lost thousands of its youth in a pointless war, this is the best way it can recoup lost vitality and gain from economic connections to both the EU and Russia. Russia has to guarantee Ukraine’s independence as long as it does not join Nato or any alliance against Russia.
The question is: where does India and Indian diplomacy fit in?
There is already fresh thinking in Europe (see here, here, here, here) about evolving a new approach to Russia, with both France and Germany talking about talking to Vladimir Putin. India must do more to push this kind of thinking to its logical goal of direct talks to end the Ukraine conflict, and gradual integration of Russia into Europe’s economic engine. This does not preclude Russia doing economic deals with the US or China or Japan or India.
But if India has to play a behind-the-scenes role not only in Europe but other areas of interest to itself, it has to do two things apart from focusing on sustaining high growth: One, it must expand its diplomatic heft and grow its own security and trade think-tanks. With so many trade deals now being signed, including the mega deals with the European Union and America, we must be able to build expertise on how we can strategically use these trade deals to strengthen ourselves. Two, we must expand our national security doctrine beyond Pakistan and China – our two main security threats.
India is very weak in both areas. According to a ministry of external affairs reply to a query in parliament, India had a sanctioned strength of 1,177 Indian foreign service (IFS) officers in 2025. There are 6,277 people (both nationals and locals) working in various missions and posts abroad, including in multilateral institutions. This is far too small a specialised contingent for a country that expects to get to $10 trillion GDP by the mid-1930s, and become a developed country over the next quarter century. The annual intake of 30-35 foreign service officers simply needs to be doubled, and more short-term expertise must be added. There are simply not enough officers and experts on various countries and multilateral institutions, especially with an understanding of trade and security issues beneficial to India.
The second issue is to expand our thinking on national security, including the internal security dimension. For example, if we want to play a behind-the-scenes role in Ukraine, it is difficult to think of anyone other than Ajit Doval, the National Security Advisor, for the job. But Doval is 81, and he clearly needs a successor and a much wider and stronger national security advisory structure that includes not only a potential successor and more specialist full-time NSA staff, but also strong linkages with academia where security options are developed continuously based on emerging geopolitical trends. Strong expertise on China, Russia, the US, major EU powers (Germany, France, Mediterranean and eastern Europe), Latin America and Africa, not to speak of Japan and south-east Asia and Australia, is absolutely essential.
India has to up its game in both diplomacy and global power games. We are already the third largest economy by purchasing power parity, and will be one in dollar terms in the next four to five years. We are punching far below our weight in global developments. As the Economic Survey 2025-26 notes: “The Australia-based Lowy Institute’s Power Gap Index suggests that India is operating below its full strategic potential. India’s power gap score is -4.0, the lowest in Asia, excluding Russia and North Korea. India has its work cut out.”
Apart from growing our economy, we simply cannot afford to be driven by a diplomatic and security establishment that is too narrow to be effective.
R Jagannathan is an editor and the former editorial director at Swarajya magazine. He tweets @TheJaggi. Views are personal.