Will there be anything more than pomp and show during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to India this week? To be sure, the two leaders could do with some uplifting pageantry. For Macron, struggling to reinvent his presidency, the enthusiastic reception in India would be a relief. The royal Rajputana welcome in Jaipur to Macron should look good back in France. The French presidency is Republican by nature but imperial in style.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is riding high at home, Macron’s visit marks continuing high-level political engagement from the Western chancelleries at a time when the liberal Anglo-Saxon media is going ballistic about his temple project and India’s retreat from secularism. It is always wrong, though, to conflate Western geopolitical interests with the media articulation of liberal ideology. In any case, you can’t be more secular than the French in the East or the West.
But what about substance? The two leaders had met last July when Modi travelled to Paris to participate in the Bastille Day celebrations. They had issued an ambitious new framework — Horizon 2047— to advance cooperation in many areas, including defence, space, and nuclear energy over the next quarter of a century.
My Dear Friend President @EmmanuelMacron, we eagerly look forward to receiving you as the Chief Guest at the 75th Republic Day. We will also celebrate India- France strategic partnership and shared belief in democratic values. Bientôt ! https://t.co/jvzvOY2NNa
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 22, 2023
It is not easy to top up that expansive agenda in six months. But it should certainly be possible to showcase progress in implementing the plans unveiled last July. What about the in-principle deals that were announced — on India buying 26 Rafale Marine aircraft and building three Scorpene submarines or the plans to transfer jet engine technology to India?
It is not clear if sufficient progress could have been made in the last six months either on these deals or on advancing defence industrial collaboration between the two countries. Unlike the US, the French executive is strong and can push through agreements purposefully. In Delhi, the Modi government does not see itself as a lame duck before the impending elections and can get things done until the last day of the current term.
Irrespective of the concrete outcomes of the visit, Modi and Macron have something to ponder over — the rapidly changing regional and international context since the two leaders met in Paris. That discussion could lend greater urgency to the implementation of their plans. It could also help the two leaders go beyond the traditional slogan of “strategic autonomy” that has long provided an ideological bond between Delhi and Paris.
Three new features stand out in the international situation. First, Ukraine’s counter-offensive against the Russian invasion has stalled, and the question of war and peace in the heart of Europe is back in debate. Many of the recent assumptions are up for reconsideration.
Second, the Middle East, which appeared quiet six months ago, is now on fire. The terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7 last year by Hamas and the massive retaliation by Israel have enhanced the prospects for a wider war in the region. The attacks on Red Sea shipping — one of the most important commercial arteries of the world — by the Houthis of Yemen are having a big effect on the global economy.
Third, the prospects of the return of Donald Trump to the White House have generated fears of renewed political chaos and radical redirection of policies in Washington. US domestic politics has become a major variable in international politics today.
Adapting to the new dynamic in the US will be a great challenge for Europe, which is worried about renewed hostility in Washington to the trans-Atlantic military alliance NATO. Equally worrisome for Europe is the Republican Party’s opposition to further military support for Ukraine and Trump’s presumed predilections for deal-making with Russia.
Although PM Modi has had a decent working relationship with Trump, Delhi will have challenges managing the many consequences of Trump’s regional and global policies.
Trump has promised to junk the focus on climate change, introduce across-the-board tariffs on all imports into the US, and demand a renegotiation of the terms of engagement with the allies and partners in Europe and Asia. His style of governance is also likely to generate problems for India.
Meanwhile, Trump’s America First policies will test two big ideas that have traditionally bound India and France. One is the idea of a multipolar world, and the other is the notion of strategic autonomy.
Well before Russia and China championed the idea of a multipolar world, France pushed for it in the late 1990s. Describing the US as an unconstrained “hyperpower”, French leaders called for coalitions to limit the dangers of American unilateralism. India, too, was anxious about the dangers of a unipolar world and the potential harm that the US could do to India. US activism on Kashmir and its declared objective of rolling back India’s nuclear weapons programme dispelled all doubts in Delhi. France, in contrast, suggested that isolating India made no sense and that it should be integrated into the global nuclear order. After India’s nuclear tests in 1998, Paris helped India deflect the non-proliferation pressures from the other members of the United Nations Security Council, including Russia. More recently, France has extended rock-like support in the UNSC in blocking China’s attempt to internationalise the Kashmir dispute in 2019.
The notion of strategic autonomy is also dear to the foreign policy establishments in Delhi and Paris. To them, it has symbolised many things, including an independent foreign policy and maintaining political distance from the US.
But what sense do the two concepts make if the US retreats from an expansive international role in the increasingly likely second presidential term of Trump? It is not that American power has declined in real terms, but domestic politics could compel American retrenchment in many areas.
Defining their core foreign policy identities with reference to the geopolitical orientation of the US would make little sense for Delhi and Paris. The challenge for Modi and Macron does not lie in abstract conceptions like “mutipolarity” and “strategic autonomy”. It is about addressing the real questions at hand.
How to bring peace to Ukraine and arrange a stable security order in Central Europe? How can India contribute to European security? How can France boost India’s capabilities for deterring war in Asia? How to protect the SLOCs in the waters of West Asia in case the US, which is doing the heavy lifting now, pulls back? Trade through the Red Sea is more important for India and Europe than the US.
For nearly a century, the distant power, America, has underwritten the security of Eurasia. If the Trump phenomenon is about the US rethinking the costs and benefits of that role, the regional powers in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia must step forward in addressing the current crises as well as develop long-term plans to stabilise Eurasia and its waters.
The writer is a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express
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