New challenges and opportunities

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2337201.ece

• Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation India and the Soviet Union signed on August 9, 1971 sprang from a convergence of national interests and shared perceptions of security risks
• Forty years on security perceptions have changed, creating new challenges and opportunities for India and Russia,
• 1971 treaty helped India win its third war against Pakistan, safeguard its independence and territorial integrity and neutralise external threats
• treaty provided for immediate mutual consultations in case either country came under attack.
• During bangladesh war 1971 Soviet Union responded to US threat by dispatching almost its entire Pacific Fleet to the Indian Ocean, poured arms and ammunitions into India and blocked anti-India moves in the United Nations Security Council.
• Soviet Union offered India cheap credits and technological assistance in setting up steel, machine-building, power generation, mining and pharmaceutical industries that ensured its economic independence

• How has the situation changed today?
• period of drift under President Boris Yeltsin
• elevated to a “privileged strategic partnership” by President Dmitry Medvedev
• Debate in India on how relevant the strategic ties with Russia are today
• Russia-China relations have turned around from hostility to friendship
• Russia is no longer in confrontation with the U.S. and India is pursuing strategic ties with the U.S.
• Indo-Russian partnership may help the two countries deal with a rising China
• Russian-Chinese treaty of peace and friendship signed in 2001.
• dialogue among Russia, India and China (RIC) can be useful in facilitating more harmonious relations between the two Asian giants.
• India-China relations will keep improving as India accelerates its economic rise

IMEPDIMENTS TO STRATEGIC ALLIANCE BETWEEN INDIA US

• number of impediments that make a strategic alliance between India and the U.S. unlikely,
• India's traditional non-alignment
• U.S.-Pakistan strategic tie-up 

• standoff with Iran.

• U.S. attempts to use india as a counterbalance to China.

• RUSSIA FLAWS
• Russia's policy in Asia is too much China-centric
• Russia should reach out more energetically to other Asian countries — Japan, rising Indonesia and Vietnam and, of course, India.
• two countries cannot rely on state-to-state relations only as in Soviet times
• necessary to promote business-to-business ties, people-to-people contacts and interaction between civil society groups.
• bilateral trade hardly reaching $10 billion,
• Russia's fixation on the West in its quest for resources for economic modernisation