The Wrong Target

By threatening India with secondary sanctions over its ties with Russia, the West exposes its double standards and risks alienating one of its few true democratic partners in Asia.

Mark Rutte

It is a curious spectacle when the world’s strongest democracy lectures the world’s largest on strategic morality. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s recent warning that India (along with Brazil and China) could be hit “very hard” by secondary sanctions if it continues doing business with Russia reeks of a familiar condescension. Coming hot on the heels of President Donald Trump’s announcement of a new 50-day deadline for a Ukraine peace deal, with tariffs of up to 100 percent hanging over Russian trade partners, the message was toe the Western line.

For India, the implied threat is galling. For decades, it has walked a careful tightrope between East and West, rooted not in opportunism but in a principled pursuit of strategic autonomy. That Delhi imports Russian oil is no secret; it does so not to bankroll Vladimir Putin’s war machine, but to protect its own economic interests in an inflation-prone, energy-starved developing economy. Moreover, unlike China, India is no revisionist power. It has neither enabled Russia militarily nor undermined the Western sanctions regime. If anything, India has emerged as a rare voice that can speak with both Moscow and Washington and be heard across the world.

The irony, of course, is that America and NATO now choose to single out India while continuing to mollycoddle Pakistan - China’s closest ally in the region, a nuclear-armed state with a military-dominated polity, and a long-standing haven for terror groups. For years, successive U.S. administrations have poured billions into Pakistan’s military establishment in the name of counterterrorism only to watch its generals shelter the Taliban, enable cross-border terrorism in India (as in the recent Pahalgam massacre) and deepen defence cooperation with Beijing.

In contrast, India has stood by the West on every fundamental value – be it democracy, rule of law, open markets and yet faces threats of punitive tariffs. If the West wants to preserve the global order it claims to defend, it would do well to treat India as a partner, not a subordinate.

The notion that New Delhi can simply be strong-armed into severing ties with Moscow reveals a deeper, post-Cold War Western anxiety.

India has legitimate defence needs that cannot yet be met by Western suppliers alone. Around 60–70 percent of India’s military hardware is still of Russian origin - an inheritance from Cold War alignments born out of necessity, when the West chose Pakistan over India. And despite all the talk of de-risking from authoritarian supply chains, India has yet to see the kind of strategic technology transfers or manufacturing partnerships from the West that would enable a full pivot.

This is not to suggest that India is indifferent to the Ukraine war. It has called repeatedly for diplomacy, refrained from recognising Russia’s annexations, and provided humanitarian assistance to Kyiv. But Delhi’s neutrality is not an endorsement of Russian aggression.

Trump’s new 50-day ultimatum, accompanied by Rutte’s cheerleading, will likely fall flat in South Block. Not because India supports Russia, but because it sees through the US’ hypocrisy.

NATO nations continue to import Russian gas by proxy; European firms quietly circumvent sanctions through third countries. The same West that demands India sacrifice its economic security did not flinch when arming autocracies in West Asia or coddling China until it was too late.

If the Western alliance believes that coercive diplomacy will bring India into line, it is badly mistaken. Far from isolating Russia, it risks pushing India away into a more assertive non-alignment, one that resists bullying from either pole. And that would be a strategic loss for the West.

For the world’s liberal democracies to prevail against authoritarianism, unity must be forged through trust, not tariffs. The sooner NATO realises this, the better. Because if it alienates India today, it will find itself dangerously alone tomorrow.