India and Brazil, in search of strategic ambiguity, by Cristina Manzano

Today you are nobody if you do not organize an international conference. The calendar starts in January with the Davos Economic Forum, followed by the Munich Security Conference in February. In early March, India has just held its own, the Raisina Dialogue, with which it seeks its share of global attention. On those days, political, economic and intellectual leaders from all over the world discuss the main geopolitical and geoeconomic challenges. It is one more example of the desire of the ‘other’ great Asian country to make its voice heard in the midst of other emerging powers.

This year, in addition, it has hosted in parallel a meeting of G20 foreign ministers – whose temporary chairmanship is held by India – and a meeting of the Quad, which includes Japan, the United States, India and Australia – a response to the increase in Chinese military power. for a few days, Delhi has been the diplomatic capital of the world, as a prelude to the greater role that India wants to take on the global stage.

As background music, inevitable, the war in Ukraine, including the presence of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. On the menu, the need for reform an ineffective multilateralism and the Indian art of maintaining strategic ambiguity. The one that allows not to openly criticize Russia and to do so against Western double standards, but to continue defending the international order based on rules. The one that claims too that no country tells another what to do, think or decide, tired of being constantly reminded that you are benefiting from better Russian oil prices.

On another continent, another regional giant also plays to strategic ambiguity with the war in Ukraine: Brazil.

Both countries have been aspiring for years to reform the United Nations Security Council in order to occupy a seat that, they consider, corresponds to them; and they are right

During the election campaign, the candidate Lula surprised by stating that the blame for the war in Ukraine lay with both sides. He then qualified. Today, as president, his policy is not to intervene in any way in the war, but to try to do it in the search for peace. “We decided not to send the ammunition because we don’t want the war with Russia to continue. It is necessary to urgently find those who can broker peace, a word that is rarely used in this conflict & rdquor ;, she recently declared.

After the years of external isolation of the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, Lula wants to restore international leadership to Brazil. It will not be easy for her, with such a complicated internal context, although he seems determined to try to coordinate a Latin American position that can help bring peace closer. A few days ago she spoke with the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, who hopes that Lula will help him better convey his position in the region. Latin American countries have mostly condemned the Russian invasion at the United Nations, but they generally see it as a matter for Europe alone.

In his conversation with Zelensky, Lula defended the territorial integrity of Ukraine, something I hadn’t explicitly done before; but his intention is to maintain a balance in his relationship with the two conflicting parties that can offer him a good starting point to promote some kind of peace negotiations. In memory is the role that Brazil played, together with Turkey, in the rapprochement between the United States and Iran that paved the way for the signing of the nuclear agreement.

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Be that as it may, India and Brazil are determined to occupy more space on the global stage. Both are part, together with China and Russia, of the BRICS, an organization that brings together the greatest geographical and demographic powers. Both will preside over the G20 -India in 2023 and Brazil next year-, a platform for your global ambitions if they know how to use it well. And both, above all, have aspired for years to reform the United Nations Security Council to occupy a seat that, they consider, corresponds to them. And they are right. An organism designed to maintain balances of power after the Second World War it is not qualified to manage the complexity of the 21st century.

At the moment, India and Brazil intend to maintain the balance between Russia and Ukraine; also between the United States and China. It would be good to find new ways to avoid the increasing division of the world into blocks. But on that path they will have to define what kind of vision they have for that new global order and on what rules they want it to be based.

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