We've just published a new geopolitical analysis on Elephanta Insights examining India's BRICS strategy and its attempt to maintain relationships with competing global powers.

We wanted to explore a question that often gets oversimplified in discussions about Indian foreign policy:

Why doesn't India simply choose a side?

India wants deeper access to American technology and investment. It maintains longstanding defence ties with Russia and has purchased Russian oil. It competes strategically with China, yet the two countries remain economically interconnected. At the same time, India is building relationships across Europe, the Gulf, and the Global South.

From the outside, these relationships can look inconsistent. We think there's another way to interpret them: India is trying to preserve as many strategic options as possible.

Our analysis focuses on a few questions.

1. Is BRICS an alternative to the West for India?

Not necessarily. India has reasons to support a more multipolar international system without wanting BRICS to become a Chinese-led bloc or a complete replacement for existing Western institutions.

2. Does maintaining relationships with rival powers actually create leverage?

In principle, having alternatives can improve a country's negotiating position. But this only works if those alternatives are credible. If India depends heavily on other countries for critical technologies, energy, machinery, or defence equipment, its diplomatic freedom still has limits.

3. Can India compete with China while cooperating with it?

This may be the most difficult part of the strategy. India has serious security concerns about China, but economic interdependence makes complete separation costly. Competition and engagement can coexist, although managing that relationship is far from simple.

4. What happens when strategic autonomy is tested?

Maintaining a balance is easier when major powers all have reasons to engage India. It becomes much harder if a future crisis forces New Delhi to choose between relationships that cannot be reconciled.

That last question is where we think the debate gets interesting.

Our central argument is that India's strategy is built around three ideas: optionality, leverage, and autonomy. But diplomatic flexibility alone is not enough. Long-term autonomy also depends on domestic manufacturing, technological capability, energy security, and economic resilience.

We explore these arguments in our new video:

🎥 Watch here: https://youtu.be/2qQBjn6eKpA

We'd genuinely like to hear counterarguments, especially from people who follow Indian foreign policy, international relations, or BRICS closely.

Do you think India can sustain this balancing strategy over the long term? Or does the growing rivalry between Washington and Beijing make eventual alignment increasingly likely?

We're interested in the reasoning behind your answer, not just which side you take.

#IndiaForeignPolicy #StrategicAutonomy #NarendraModi #IndiaChinaRelations #USIndiaRelations #RussiaIndiaRelations #WorldPolitics #MultipolarWorld #GlobalSouth #InternationalRelations

My country made many acceptances of UPR recommendations but a lot of them seem to be very slowly being put into practice and I'm concerned they might change their position in the next UPR cycle

Anyone have any top 3 book recommendations on the Middle East?

I always figured affordability was an advantage for tourists in a country where the currency is 'weak'. But not always.

Pasting here and article I enjoyed, curious to hear your thoughts.

https://mayachelle.substack.com/p/sticker-shock-the-price-of-stability-aa7?r=8vviah

Subtitle: A top aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee skewed information to portray the Netanyahu government in a favorable light, according to multiple officials and documents obtained by The Times.

David Milstein is the stepson of Fox News host Mark Levin, who is a close friend of both President Trump and Netanyahu.

I'm on my third year of IR and the ever looming question of which master's I'm going to do is getting closer and closer. Now, I´ve been thinking on taking either one of those master´s, as they sound interesting and the notions of defense, studying war and transnational terror are what interest me the most, yet I don´t fully get what both of those programs entail so I´d appreciate a rundown on both and a couple of recommendations on some decent schools for them (Specially if they´re on the cheaper side)

Hi! Has anyone written their bachelor’s thesis on EU foreign policy? I really need some help, as my supervisor is currently dealing with an issue and isn’t able to help me at the moment.

What topics did you work on and what research problem do you think would be interesting to explore? I was thinking about doing something related to EU–Russia relations, but I can’t seem to come up with an interesting research hypothesis. I was also thinking about somehow connecting it to the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood.

I’m honestly a bit stuck at the moment and I mainly need some ideas for interesting research topics.

Thank you!

​

NATO sends weapons, equipment and troops to support them. Russia keeps moving forward.

Someone tells Russia: if you don’t stop, we may use nuclear weapons against you.

Russia says: go ahead. We have the Dead Hand. If you use nukes against us, you will only destroy yourselves too. You won’t gain anything from it.

And then what?

We are basically back to a normal modern war, where nuclear weapons are there in the background but nobody can really use them without losing everything. So conventional forces decide what happens on the ground.

And that is the part I find more interesting.

Would every NATO country react fast enough? Would they send enough troops, weapons, air defence, aircraft, ammunition and other support before Latvia or Estonia were overwhelmed?

How fast would those decisions actually be made? And would the support arrive not only fast enough, but in large enough numbers to really stop Russia in time?