With Turkey and India, We Are Witnessing the Emergence of Multi-Alignment in Diplomacy.
Putin's Russia is becoming more and more isolated.
At international conferences, there are sometimes family photos that surprise us. This was the case at the 22nd summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was held in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) on September 15 and 16, 2022.
The SCO is an organization of security and economic cooperation in Asia, founded by China and Russia in 2001, which is the counterpart of the Western international organizations that are the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU).
On September 15, 2022, in the beautiful city of Samarkand, the presidents of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Belarus were seen chatting hilariously around a well-stocked table. The first country belongs to NATO, the great Western military alliance, engaged in unprecedented financial, material, and tactical aid to Ukraine, which was attacked on February 24, 2022, by the third country, partly from the territory of the fourth country.
The old diplomatic principle that “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” seems to have fallen into disuse.
President Erdogan intends to make the most of the Turkish acquis - the military alliance with the United States dating back to 1952 and the economic association with Europe dating back to 1963 - while maintaining his political and energy partnership with Russia, and, more generally, maximum diplomatic freedom of maneuver.
Erdogan wants to continue to be an ally of the West within NATO, but there is no question of him aligning himself with the Washington axis under any circumstances. The war in Ukraine has offered Turkey three historic opportunities, which Erdogan has seized perfectly.
The first is the publicity for its arms industry. Its Bayraktar TB2 drones, sold to Ukraine in early 2022, are now widely demanded around the world. The second is the recovery of Russian gas and oligarchic money, boycotted by the West. The third chance is the role of mediator, of potential peacemaker between Russians and Ukrainians. It is the Turks who organized the Istanbul talks and who ensure the smooth running of the UN Odesa-Bosphorus naval corridor for the export of Ukrainian grain.
Once castigated for his thuggish behavior in Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Libya, the Turkish leader is now almost at the doorstep of the Nobel Peace Prize. In reality, Erdogan is a Muslim Brother by upbringing, a nationalist in his practice of power, and he pursues his interests in foreign policy, apart from any moral considerations.
In Samarkand, there was another Asian country that does not intend to handcuff its foreign policy to a single axis. It is India. As much as Delhi is delighted with its 2008 civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States, and its participation in the Quad (the alliance against China of the four great democracies of the Indo-Pacific, India, America, Japan, and Australia), it refuses to join Washington's anti-Russian policy.
The Russians have been faithful friends of India since its independence, and Narendra Modi refused to vote against Russia at the United Nations. He buys more gas and oil from Russia than he did before the war. At the Bandung Conference (1955), India was a major leader in the non-aligned movement. It was a non-alignment based on the principle of non-violence preached by Mahatma Gandhi. It was crucial for a leader like Nehru that non-violence be applied to relations between states.
The non-aligned criticized Soviet Russia and America for not hesitating to use force to advance their interests. In the autumn of 1962, the military humiliation of India in the Himalayas by China (although present at Bandung) was a rude awakening for Nehru. Today, the very realistic Indian Foreign Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, intends to “exploit the opportunities created by global contradictions.” He advocates both “engaging America, managing China, cultivating Europe, reassuring Russia, engaging Japan, attracting neighbors.”
With Modi, who will chair the G20 in 2023, the pacifist non-alignment has given way to the militarized multi-alignment. This multi-alignment is now a factor of moderation. Like Xi Jinping, Modi uses his good relations with Putin to dissuade him from using nuclear weapons. India and China are willing to give Putin time to get out of the strategic trap he has put himself in, but they will react the day he is tempted to go to extremes.
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