The Middle East is one of the most dynamic and significant regions in India’s extended neighbourhood. It is crucial for various geopolitical, geoeconomic and strategic reasons be it energy security, foreign trade and investments, or maritime security in the western Indian Ocean. In recent years, India has carefully calibrated its diplomatic moves to develop strong partnerships with important regional countries and in the process has expanded its engagements with the region. This has helped in advancing India’s interests, including the safety and security of its citizens residing in the Gulf, import of oil and gas to meet the growing domestic requirements and enhancing bilateral trade and attracting investments. Moreover, India has entered into minilateral partnerships such as the India, Israel, the US and the UAE (I2U2) quadrilateral, India, France, UAE trilateral and the proposed quadrilateral with the US, the UAE and Saudi Arabia with specific developmental and strategic objectives.
While India’s engagements with the region are expanding and maturing, it is important to be mindful of the ever-changing regional dynamics. This is significant because the Middle East is experiencing important shifts due to domestic, regional and global developments. Four trends are discernible. First, the region is witnessing a series of regional reconciliations since 2021 that has significantly altered the regional outlook and the intra-Middle East dynamics. Secondly, the regional states have become considerate in their foreign policy choices emphasising issue-based partnership and strategic autonomy. Thirdly, as the United States and Europe are working to reduce their commitments in the Middle East, Russia and China are expanding their footprints. Finally, the region is also susceptible to climate change and its myriad impacts. These developments are crucial for the Indian foreign policy establishment to consider in charting the future course of diplomacy in the region.
The most important trend in the Middle East is the change in the intra-state interactions roughly coinciding with the change of administration in the United States in January 2021 and the economic impact of Covid-19. The war in Ukraine and the consequent food and energy crisis further strengthened these trends. These reconciliatory moves have effectively altered the antagonistic and confrontational modes of interaction among regional states which had started in the wake of Arab Spring uprisings and replaced them with diplomacy and negotiations. Hence, countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Türkiye, Israel and Iran together with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain and Oman have made diplomatic overtures to either end or resolve differences or at least begin a discussion towards finding a mutually acceptable solution. This led to the end of the Saudi-UAE-Egypt-Bahrain boycott of Qatar and these countries have gradually been restoring diplomatic, trade and political ties. Similarly, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have taken the lead to bring Syria back into the Arab fold ending a decade of isolation and confrontation.
The Gulf-Israel rapprochement, although predates the current trends of reconciliations, has continued to move ahead with Abraham Accords presenting a template for regional countries to work towards normalising relations with Israel. Even though it might take more time for other regional powers to make a move, the de jure or de facto acceptance of Israeli existence is clearly visible among Arab states. This has also opened newer avenues for India’s engagement with the region such as the I2U2. While the lack of Palestinian statehood remains a hurdle in realising a complete normalisation of Arab-Israel relations, recent diplomatic breakthroughs have certainly opened a door for a better future. The maritime boundary agreement between Israel and Lebanon with the Mediterranean Sea gas exploration deal in the backdrop adds to the trend.
Similarly, Türkiye has started a foreign policy recalibration towards its Middle Eastern neighbours due to geoeconomic compulsions. Hence, Ankara ended differences with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, started negotiations with Cairo and Tel Aviv and reached out to Damascus ending a decade of confrontationist policy and replacing it with diplomacy. In some ways, the economic potentials of these reconciliatory steps, especially towards Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have helped President Erdoğan to retain power for another five-year term.
However, the most consequential of these reconciliations is the revival of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran with China standing as the international facilitator. This is crucial for a variety of reasons as the two regional giants have had a history of competing for power and status often leading to serious tensions between them and this spilling over to other regional countries and conflicts such as in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
These have created a new trend in the Middle East wherein the regional countries are effectively rethinking their geopolitical posturing from a confrontational attitude to preferring diplomatic overtures. This means that the opportunities for international powers, including India, to engage in regional and transnational interactions are increasing. This is important because the Middle East presents immense untapped potential so far as developmental issues are concerned. Be it in the field of infrastructure development, service industry, food security, healthcare, defence procurement, transnational connectivity, or offering technological solutions to various socio-economic challenges, there is immense potential for investments for aspirations and rising powers. India has the advantage of a strong and longstanding engagement in the Middle East region besides being a fast-growing economy and legacy of a non-interventionist power. There is a natural inclination among regional countries towards India given its soft power. Nonetheless, there are challenges emanating from poor records of delivery and a complex web of domestic issues often complicating external investments.
These regional trends are also linked to the global geopolitical dynamics wherein the US-Europe relations with Russia-China are increased getting tense and the former is focused on containing China in its backyard through articulations such as Indo-Pacific and confronting Russia’s belligerence in Eastern Europe by supporting the Kiev resistance against Moscow. This has impacted the Middle East at two levels; first, the US and European powers are looking to reduce their commitments in the region which is altering the nature of bilateral ties between the regional countries and the US and Europe. At another level, this is making the regional countries more cautious and circumspect of their foreign policy choices wherein they are choosing strategic autonomy and issue-based relations rather than unconditional alliances that defined the Middle East-West relations during much of the Cold War and strategic alignments that defined their relations for close to three decades since the end of the Cold War. This means that the scope for non-Western powers to engage in strategic and developmental partnerships has significantly increased.
These trends present an opportunity to India as it is recognised as a potential partner among Middle Eastern countries but these also present a challenge due to a related trend. As the US and Europe are reducing their commitments in the region, it is opening space also for other aspiring and rising powers. And, external countries that have moved quickly to harness these potentials are China, South Korea, Japan and other East and Southeast Asian countries as well as to an extent Russia. This increases the competition for India both as a potential developmental partner and investor as well as a destination for lucrative investment from the rich Gulf region. To be able to compete effectively, India needs to up its game both in terms of capacity building and outreach. And, although going by the recent records, New Delhi, especially under Prime Minister Modi, has significantly enhanced its regional engagements while also working towards comprehensive economic reforms at home, the competition from various quarters is tough and intense for several reasons. China stands out for being a politically ambitious actor and has the advantage of being the first mover, which means India needs to think innovatively and develop a multipronged strategy to realise its potential in the Middle East. In addition to engaging in mililateral and plurilateral partnerships with the US and European countries, India can also seek partnerships with East Asian economies including Japan and South Korea.
Finally, it is also important that the G2G efforts are complemented with B2B partnerships wherein lies the immense potential. Indian industries and businesses need to invest time and energy in expanding partnerships with counterparts in the Gulf and Israel and work towards tapping the immense potential in various sectors including in defence manufacturing and exports. In other words, the time is ripe for the Indian private sector to take advantage of the global and regional geopolitical developments and the political and diplomatic efforts by the Government of India and work towards newer B2B partnerships that can go a long way in achieving India’s rising power potentials.
–The writer teaches Middle East Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
