China-brokered truce between Saudi Arabia and Iran and Russia’s successful mediation with the Arab League to re-integrate Syria shows a pattern of where the region is headed. The Sino-Russian worldview on West Asia converges to a great extent. Both desire stability because both have energy interests as Russia is an energy exporter and China is energy importer. By bringing stability in the region, they want to re-integrate the region economically.
The US has made a good move in the region. It has acknowledged that Carter Doctrine still holds strategic value for the US as “security of the Persian Gulf is of vital American national security interests”. By linking the region to South Asia, it can reconcile with both its partners i.e. the Gulf and India. They have one advantage over the Russians and the Chinese – their partners in the Gulf acknowledge that complete US withdrawal from the region would spell chaos, a trust which Moscow and Beijing are building.
India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is on a visit to Saudi Arabia. Under the I2U2 format that was launched in 2021 and was being hailed as the “West Asian QUAD”, India-Israel-USA-UAE came together to work on regional integration. The US has initiated a joint multimodal infrastructure project between India-US-UAE-Saudi Arabia, replacing Saudi Arabia for this moment with Israel. The inclusion of Israel, at a later date, in building this connectivity project is kept open.
For India, the region is important for various reasons. One, the region is part of India’s extended neighbourhood. Its destiny is shared with India on a great extent given the fact that over 8 million Indians work in the region. Balancing other extra-regional powers in the region is critical for India to comprehensively deal with the region. The region fills India’s energy hunger to a great extent and as India grows, its energy appetite will only grow.
Having good relations with the Arab world aids India’s Pakistan policy. Economic integration of West Asia and South Asia bypassing Pakistan, effectively deprives Islamabad of economic opportunities. For Rawalpindi who has vowed to focus on geoeconomics over geopolitics, New Delhi’s plans to build a robust economic integration via sea is a blow to their efforts on indicating to both the sides of Pakistan’s geographical value.
NSA Doval met with his American, Saudi and Emirati counterparts in Riyadh. He also called upon the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. The visit comes a week after he undertook a two-day visit to Tehran, Iran for substantial talks with his counterpart and the foreign minister of Iran. He called upon the Iranian President Raisi on that visit too.
India is using the security environment being formed by Russia and China to its advantage blending it with American economic and technological interests. This is a masterstroke if genuinely worked upon with a proper roadmap to boost ties with the region from a long-term partnership perspective.
