![Prime Minister Narendra Modi with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar at an official event. [Photo Courtesy: Praveen Jain via The Print].](https://southasiatimes.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20-scaled-e1755601883425-1024x576-1.webp)
United States President Donald Trump insisted earlier in February that India had agreed to stop buying oil from Russia as part of a larger trade agreement. In return, Washington would reduce tariffs on Indian exports to the United States, including removing a 25% “penalty” linked to trade with Moscow. Subsequently, the Indian government came under fire, including from Opposition parties, for acquiescing to Mr. Trump’s demands that New Delhi stop purchasing Russian oil.
However, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, speaking at the Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2026, rejected that India’s strategic autonomy had been compromised. Responding to claims that New Delhi was scaling back Russian oil imports as part of a recent trade understanding with Washington, he maintained that India’s policy framework remained intact. “We are very much wedded to strategic autonomy,” he said.
From Non-Alignment to Multi-Alignment
India projects “strategic autonomy” as a modernized form of non-alignment, often described as multi-alignment, designed to preserve decisional independence amid great power competition.
The doctrine emphasizes sovereign choice, flexibility, and transactional pragmatism rather than bloc politics. However, in practice, autonomy operates less as insulation from power politics and more as a hedging strategy within it.
India seeks simultaneous leverage from the United States through technology access, Indo-Pacific cooperation, and market integration, while relying on Moscow for defence supply chains, energy security, and nuclear collaboration. This dual orientation reflects calculated pragmatism but also structural exposure. As global polarization intensifies, the space for hedging narrows, revealing autonomy as contingent on systemic permissiveness rather than intrinsic independence.
Energy Security: The Structural Vulnerability
India imports over 85% of its crude oil requirements, rendering energy security a structural vulnerability.
Following the 2022 Ukraine war, India’s pivot to Russian crude has dramatically reshaped its energy landscape, though recent geopolitical shifts in early 2026 have begun to reverse this trend. The reported 2026 trade energy arrangement with Washington, where tariff reductions were allegedly linked to curtailment of Russian oil purchases, illustrates the limits of autonomy under economic coercion. Such linkage highlights that trade leverage can condition sovereign energy decisions.
Oil, being foundational to economic stability, exposes India’s autonomy narrative to geo-economic pressure, demonstrating that diversification does not equate to insulation when financial and market dependencies remain asymmetric.
Defence Dependencies and Strategic Dilemmas
Despite diversification efforts under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, approximately 55–60% of India’s military inventory remains of Russian origin, including critical platforms such as Su-30 aircraft, T-90 tanks, submarines, and the S-400 air defence system.
Concurrently, India has deepened operational interoperability with the United States through agreements such as Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), alongside expanding Quad naval cooperation. This dual ecosystem produces technological interdependence rather than autonomy.
The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) overhang regarding Russian acquisitions and debates over potential F-35 procurement illustrate the policy conundrum: deeper Western integration risks strategic estrangement from Moscow, while sustained Russian reliance complicates full-spectrum US alignment. Autonomy thus becomes a balancing exercise constrained by legacy systems and future technological pathways.
Geopolitical Polarization and Shrinking Strategic Space
India’s strategic environment is shaped by intensifying US–China rivalry and Russia–West confrontation. While New Delhi positions itself as indispensable to multiple poles, systemic polarization increases alignment expectations. US frustration over India’s refusal to condemn Moscow and its energy purchases demonstrates the limits of tolerance when core Western interests are perceived to be undermined.
Simultaneously, Russia views India as a key economic and diplomatic partner amid sanctions, supplying oil, nuclear fuel, and defence technology. The structural contradiction lies in India’s aspiration to remain equidistant while participating in US-led Indo-Pacific frameworks designed explicitly to counter China. As superpower rivalries sharpen, the strategic latitude underpinning autonomy compresses.
The Weaponization of Trade Instruments
The reported tariff reduction, from punitive levels near 50% to approximately 18% in exchange for policy recalibration on Russian oil, symbolizes the Weaponization of trade instruments in contemporary geopolitics. Whether interpreted as negotiated pragmatism or coercive diplomacy, the episode demonstrates asymmetry in the US–India economic relationship.
Access to Western markets and technology remains critical to India’s growth ambitions. Consequently, economic interdependence becomes a channel through which strategic behavior can be influenced, challenging the credibility of absolute autonomy claims.
India aspires to leadership within the Global South. It is active in platforms such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), G20, and IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa Dialogue Forum) while simultaneously embedding itself in US-aligned Indo-Pacific coalitions. This dual positioning generates a credibility tension. Advocacy of strategic pluralism coexists with deepening Western security integration. The sustainability of this posture depends on managing perceptions of opportunism versus principled flexibility.
From Doctrine to Constrained Practice
India’s strategic autonomy increasingly resembles a calibrated hedging framework dependent on maintaining simultaneous relevance to competing powers. Its sustainability could be predicted on the intensity of US–China rivalry, the durability of Russia as an energy and defence partner under sanctions, and its ability to indigenize defence production and diversify energy sources.
Amid deepening polarization and the intensification of explicit alignment demands, the autonomy has transitioned from doctrine to constrained practice. The constrained autonomy abates India’s normative claim to regional leadership. Moreover, the situation illustrates how external economic leverage can reshape regional power behavior, reinforcing the importance of diversified diplomacy and strategic redundancy for smaller states.
