By Madhav D.Nalapat

The foreign ministers of the three giants of the Asian landmass Russia, China and India meet today in New Delhi on what will, hopefully, lead to a trilateral global alliance promoting international peace, prosperity and parity.

Much work remains to make this dream a reality. But the progress made in the past three years leads to optimism that within the next six years, at most, a framework agreement will be signed formalizing this major partnership.

The principal objectives would be to ensure that

(1) all Asian countries are allowed to pursue their own paths to political, economic and social development, without outside pressure;

(2) no single country can dominate Asia or any corner of the continent, including the three trilateral partners; and

(3) a worldwide balance is established so that healthy cooperation rather than confrontation becomes the norm in relations between countries.

Both India and China have historically relied on soft power to extend their influence. Although Chinese mariners scoured the oceans of the world before the Europeans, not a single country was taken over by force.

The port calls became occasions for an exchange of views and products, although the short-sightedness of future Chinese emperors prevented the country from following up on these developments.

China withdrew into itself, becoming ever weaker. Today, once again, China is active throughout the world as a harbinger of trade, not war.

The same goes for India and Russia. Since the disastrous intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, Moscow has avoided entering into combat anywhere in the globe, even where its interests have been severely affected, as in some of the countries of the "Near Abroad". This is in contrast to the experience both historical and current of those powers that are either European or have majority populations of European descent.

It is worth noting that the European powers all won special advantages in the rest of the world not by peaceful cooperation but by conquest. This is perhaps the reason that soldiers, sailors and airmen play a much bigger role in Western foreign policy than diplomats.

The Western world has relied on tooth and claw to establish and retain its supremacy. In today's world, this state of affairs is counter-productive even for the West.

A trilateral India-China-Russia alliance would act as a check on such action. It would exert pressure for nations not to resort to force, an outcome that would benefit the entire globe, including Western countries.

Although the Russian people look European, the fact is that they have their own mindset, tradition and values. Hence they will always be seen as outsiders by continental European powers such as Germany and France. These countries recognize Russia as the only nearby country with the potential to overshadow both of them, should Moscow ever be admitted into the European Union.

After years of seeking to follow the Europeans by leaving behind their Russian heritage, the Russian leadership has finally realized that the major continental European powers have zero intention of giving parity let alone primacy to Moscow.

Since then, Russian President Vladimir Putin has focused as much on Asia as on Europe, and with far better results. This has opened the way for an India-China-Russia alliance, since Russia remains the strategic giant among the three.

In the case of China, both Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping understood that there would always be a clash of interests in a relationship with the West. At the same time, some Chinese scholars have believed that it is possible to create an equitable partnership with the West (especially the US), much as Putin tried. Today, I believe the strong leadership under President Hu Jintao has clearly recognized that China needs to rely on its own strength and that the best way for its continuous development is through partnerships with its neighbors, especially India and Russia.

In future talks with Russia, India and China, hopefully more countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and even countries in South America and Africa will be at the table.

The change in attitude of the leadership in both China and Russia towards the emerging opportunities for cooperation with India is driving forward this partnership.

In the case of India, after six decades of conducting a foreign policy independent of the West, a team similar in its geopolitical culture to Boris Yeltsin is now in office in New Delhi. For them, the desirable path is to accommodate Western demands and needs.

China has also been through such a phase, but it lasted less than a decade.

In contrast, for Russia, this Westernized phase lasted from 1985 till 2003. The process began with Mikhail Gorbachev and lasted into the first years of the Putin administration. In 2003, Moscow finally accepted that the policy of the continental European powers was to cut away at its relationships and spheres of influence with the goal of making Moscow irrelevant in Europe.

The reality is that Russia's nuclear and missile arsenal gives it a weight far greater than that of Germany, France and Italy combined.

This leaves India a relative pygmy in the strategic field. But the country's scientific base is strong enough to close the gap within a decade, once the political leadership decides on such a course.

Since the mid-1990s, several people within the Indian strategic establishment including this writer believed that the Western world would be farsighted enough to make India a partner on equal terms.

However, it is now clear that the Western world still sees India much as the British did in the past a secondary power that ought to be satisfied with crumbs.

This refusal of the West to acknowledge the equality of China, Russia and India with themselves is the reason that the years ahead are likely to witness the birth of a possible India-China-Russia alliance. It would become the biggest geopolitical factor in Asia, with possible extension of the alliance to countries in Africa and South America.
 
This future may be in the making when the foreign ministers of the three countries that comprise 40 percent of the world's population meet today.

The author is director of the School of Geopolitics, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India. He was the first scholar to suggest an India-Russia-China alliance, in 1983.

(China Daily February 14, 2007)