Why India’s Strategic Autonomy Matters for Europe in an Unpredictable World

Why India’s Strategic Autonomy Matters for Europe in an Unpredictable World

(IN BRIEF) In 2025, India pursued a strategy of strategic autonomy aimed not at dominating the international system but at balancing it, drawing on historical experience and emphasizing institutional continuity, economic resilience, and multidimensional diplomacy. Rather than strict non-alignment, New Delhi practiced active multi-alignment, engaging major powers while avoiding dependency. This approach shaped India’s roles in BRICS, highlighted at the Rio de Janeiro summit, and in the G20 in Johannesburg, where India supported Global South representation and multilateral cooperation. Domestically, political cohesion under Narendra Modi enabled long-term planning and resilience against external pressures, including protectionist trade policies from the United States during Donald Trump’s second term. Relations with European Union emerged as a key pillar, as both India and Europe confronted economic and geopolitical fragmentation and sought greater strategic coherence. Meanwhile, rivalry with China remained central, shaped by border tensions and systemic differences, prompting India to strengthen partnerships without escalation. Strong economic growth, expanding trade, defense modernization, and rising defense exports reinforced India’s global standing. The text ultimately argues that India’s strategic autonomy and Europe’s need for unity reflect a shared imperative: preserving political and economic sovereignty in an increasingly unpredictable and power-driven international order, making deeper India–EU cooperation not just beneficial but necessary.

(OP-ED) ATHENS, 6-Jan-2026 — /EuropaWire/ — India in 2025 does not seek to lead the international system, but to manage it through balance. Its choice of strategic autonomy in a world of intensifying great-power competition is not merely a contemporary diplomatic tactic, but one rooted in deeper historical experience. During the period of the Mughal Empire, the Indian subcontinent functioned as a balancing pillar within a fragmented regional system, not through constant military expansion, but through administrative cohesion, economic strength, and controlled management of rivalries. Using different means, present-day New Delhi follows a similar logic: it avoids absolute alignments, invests in institutional continuity, and transforms economic resilience and multidimensional diplomacy into tools of geopolitical influence.

This posture carries particular significance for Europe. In 2025, the European Union faces a prolonged inflationary crisis that pressures the euro and exposes the structural weaknesses of European economic governance. Like India, the EU is a complex political construct, marked by internal imbalances and diverging national priorities. The Indian example demonstrates that the resilience of such formations does not stem from spasmodic reactions or national retrenchment, but from unity, predictability, and strategic coherence. In a world where the economy has become a field of geopolitical competition, Europe must decide whether it will function as a unified political and monetary power capable of absorbing the euro crisis, or allow internal fragmentation to undermine its position. In this context, the Indian example is not exotic; it is directly relevant.

India’s foreign policy in 2025 was shaped by a renewed commitment to “strategic autonomy,” engaging with all major powers without full alignment with any. This multi-alignment, long a defining feature of New Delhi’s diplomacy, was tested by new global realities. Rather than remaining passively non-aligned, India expanded its partnerships and took initiatives, seeking to transform strategic autonomy from a posture of detachment into tangible influence over global developments.

Within this framework, at the 17th BRICS Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in July 2025, the bloc’s leaders prioritized strengthening cooperation and cohesion within BRICS, focusing on the representation and interests of developing countries in the Global South. Discussions covered global governance, development financing, technology, and broader structural challenges, reflecting a shared effort to promote more inclusive and sustainable multilateral cooperation amid rising tensions in international trade. Despite internal differences and external pressures, the summit’s joint declaration underscored BRICS’ role as a key platform for emerging economies, while reinforcing India’s position ahead of its assumption of the bloc’s presidency in 2026.

At the same time, India maintained an active and substantive role within the G20, particularly at the 2025 summit in Johannesburg. There, it participated in discussions on critical global issues such as the climate crisis, economic resilience, and development, even amid geopolitical tensions and the absence of certain leaders. The summit’s final declaration reaffirmed commitments to multilateral cooperation and support for developing countries, reflecting priorities advanced by India and other emerging economies. The fact that the 2025 G20 summit was hosted in Africa for the first time highlighted the importance of regional representation and the integration of the Global South into global dialogue.

Domestic political cohesion provided a decisive foundation for India’s strategic patience and long-term foreign policy planning. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government continued implementing reforms aimed at maintaining economic stability and political continuity. Despite pressures stemming from the aggressive trade policy of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, including high tariffs and repeated threats of further trade restrictions, India preserved its political momentum and pursued reform initiatives, demonstrating that its internal cohesion could absorb external shocks.

The political leadership leveraged on renewed public mandate to cultivate an environment of predictability, allowing India to defend its national interests with strategic patience rather than yielding to short-term “America First” pressures. When U.S. policy toward India intensified further through trade threats linked even to the country’s energy relations, New Delhi responded calmly, treating the situation as an opportunity to diversify its trade and strategic partners.

Within this context, relations with Europe emerged in 2025 as a critical pillar of India’s global positioning. As the United States adopted a more transactional and less predictable approach to international affairs, New Delhi viewed Europe as a set of like-minded partners capable of helping balance China’s rise and reduce overdependence on a single major power. European states, increasing defense spending and seeking new strategic partnerships in the post-Brexit era and amid the war in Ukraine, showed growing convergence with India’s strategic interests. Europe’s renewed geopolitical seriousness made it, in New Delhi’s view, a credible partner, offering investment capital, advanced technologies, and meaningful defense cooperation.

At the same time, China remained the defining strategic rival to which India consistently referred, not merely as a political challenge but as a structural element of the regional system. Recurrent tensions and violations along the India-China border, with the 2020 Galwan clashes as a historical reference point, continued to undermine trust despite stabilization efforts. Differences in rhetoric and official positions on issues such as Taiwan revealed deeper geopolitical divergences, while Beijing’s growing military pressure in East Asia heightened regional uncertainty.

Meanwhile, China’s internal political hardening, marked by strict controls on freedom of expression and the media, highlighted a clear contrast with India’s democratic model. India leveraged this differentiation to strengthen its international image and diplomatic partnerships. In response to the gradual convergence among China, Pakistan, and Turkey, which could have constrained India’s strategic space, New Delhi pursued a multidimensional containment strategy, reinforcing ties with Western and regional partners while avoiding entanglement in conflicts that serve third-party narratives.

Within this broader framework, economic growth remained the foundation of India’s global influence. In 2025, the country sustained one of the highest growth rates among major economies, with GDP expanding by approximately 6.7% and exceeding 8% in one quarter, driven by strong domestic demand and investment. Despite international headwinds, exports and trade demonstrated notable resilience.

Total exports of goods and services were estimated at $73.99 billion in November 2025, up 15.5% year over year, while cumulative exports from April to November reached approximately $562 billion, an increase of 5.4%. The government presented these figures as evidence that its emphasis on manufacturing and skills development was paying dividends, turning trade policy into a flexible instrument of foreign policy. In 2025, India secured improved access to key markets through free trade agreements with New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Oman, while strengthening ties with Gulf states and Southeast Asia and laying the groundwork for new agreements, including with the United States in 2026.

Alongside its economic and trade strategy, India did not neglect the hard dimension of national security. Following the achievement of its objectives in a brief conflict with Pakistan, in response to a terrorist attack, New Delhi renewed its emphasis on modernizing the armed forces and developing indigenous defense technologies. Strikes on Pakistani air infrastructure highlighted India’s increased precision and operational capability, while the avoidance of escalation underscored its intent to act as a mature and responsible power.

In the aftermath, the government approved approximately $4.6 billion in emergency military procurement, accelerated the development of an indigenous stealth fighter, advanced the acquisition of armed drones, and finalized a $7 billion agreement to purchase 26 naval Rafale fighter jets from France. The designation of 2025 as the “Year of Defense Reforms” further reinforced this trajectory, reducing reliance on foreign suppliers and positioning India as an emerging defense exporter, with defense exports rising 12% to reach $2.76 billion.

The strengthening of India and the resilience of the European Union in 2025 are not parallel developments but two sides of the same strategic necessity: safeguarding political and economic sovereignty in a world where power is exercised with increasing bluntness. India chose not to become trapped in relationships of dependence, investing in strategic autonomy as a source of negotiating leverage. Europe, facing inflationary pressures and internal divergences, is called upon to do the same, not as an ideological exercise, but as a condition for the survival of the euro and its political weight.

Within this context, deepening India–European Union relations is not merely desirable but imperative. Stronger trade ties, technological convergence, and substantive security cooperation can serve as a counterweight to the arbitrary weaponization of economic power by major actors. The unilateral practices of the previous U.S. administration, such as the aggressive use of sanctions and political pressure in the case of Venezuela, demonstrated how fragile sovereignty becomes when dependence on a single power prevails. For India and Europe, strategic convergence is not an act of confrontation, but a necessary form of security in an international environment where unpredictability has become institutionalized.

About the author

Dimitra Staikou is a Greek lawyer, journalist, and professional writer with extensive expertise on South Asia, China, and the Middle East. Her analyses on geopolitics, international trade, and human rights have been published in leading outlets including Modern Diplomacy, HuffPost Greece, Skai.gr, Eurasia Review, and the Daily Express (UK). Fluent in English, Greek, and Spanish, Dimitra combines legal insight with on-the-ground reporting and creative storytelling, offering a nuanced perspective on global affairs.

SOURCE: Dimitra Staikou