Resurgent Russia joins 'great game' in S Asia

RUSSIA'S efforts to emerge as a more consequential global security actor centre on diminishing US influence, and its next battleground could be South Asia.

Russia has revamped its South Asia policy in recent months with a major outreach to Pakistan and stepping forward as a power broker in Afghanistan, its former stomping ground. With the help of its newfound strategic partner China, Russia intends to checkmate the United States' regional pre-eminence. But the manoeuvring has also brought Moscow in opposition to New Delhi with which it has traditionally shared robust ties. Any new power equation in the region will have long-term implications.

Since the 1960s, Russia has been a close partner of India in South Asia. This relationship has stood the test of time even as global power equation changed after the end of the Cold War. During the Cold War, the high point of the relationship was the signing of the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation, which signalled a decisive shift away from the West in response to an emerging US-Pakistan-China axis in South Asia.