India as a Decisive Variable in the RIC Framework

The Russia-India-China (RIC) framework is institutionalised through annual trilateral foreign ministers' meetings since 2002. First advanced by Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov as coordination for a multipolar order, the RIC framework brings together three nuclear powers representing over 40% of humanity. Yet its future rests disproportionately on India: close enough to Moscow to sustain the grouping, hostile enough to Beijing to strain it, and valuable enough to Washington to be courted as an instrument of its weakening.

This insight traces how shifting interest alignments among Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi will determine whether India functions as a chain-link holding the RIC triangle together, or a wedge that will eventually divide it apart; and what either outcome means for Pakistan.

Russia and China called their partnership one of ''no limits'' in February 2022, and bilateral trade between them crossed $240 billion in 2023. India, meanwhile, treats China as its principal adversary. The Galwan Valley clash of June 2020, hardened that view in New Delhi and has driven continuous military build-up along the Line of Actual Control since then.

The central paradox of the RIC triangle is the Russia-India arms relationship. Russia supplies 36% of India's arms imports, more than any other country, including the S-400 system, the jointly developed BrahMos missile, Su-30MKI fighters and successive aircraft carriers, etc. It implies that India threatens China with Russian weapons while Russia calls China its foremost partner.

France, at 29%, and the US, at 11%, also account for most of India’s defence imports, evidence of India's parallel engagement with the West.

Beijing has nevertheless tolerated Moscow’s defence ties with India. This restraint may reflect confidence in the PLA’s conventional superiority and Russia’s preservation of qualitative advantages in systems supplied to China. The arrangement may be better understood as Russia and China pragmatically managing their separate and sometimes competing relationships with India.

For India, under Prime Minister Modi, this balancing act has hardened into a ‘doctrine of strategic autonomy’ rather than non-alignment. India participates in the QUAD without letting it harden into an alliance, buys Russian oil while courting Washington, and chairs BRICS while attending G7 partner sessions. The 2023 launch of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) shows the same balancing instinct extended into infrastructure and trade, with India banking on Gulf and European connectivity even as it keeps engaging with BRICS.

Yet the doctrine carries a tension: the US backs India's rise as a counterweight to China, while India has tended to turn the newfound capability against Pakistan. For example, twice in six years, in 2019 and again in 2025, India has used Western-origin military power against Pakistan rather than China. Moreover, India does not seem ready for open confrontation with China as economic engagement between the two is increasing. The bilateral trade hit a record USD 155.6 billion in 2025, and grew 23.6% in early 2026, despite Western pressure.

The US, however, desires India to actively check China, not merely hedge against it, and its tolerance has limits. At New Delhi's Raisina Dialogue in March 2026, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said Washington would not repeat with India the “mistakes” it made with China. After declining to sanction India under CAATSA and accepting the rise of discounted Russian crude from under 2% of Indian oil imports before the Ukraine war to over a third by 2024, the US imposed an additional 25% tariff in August 2025. This raised India’s total tariff burden to 50%, which is among the highest imposed on any economy by the US.

The tariff is one track of a broader pressure by the US on India that also runs through conditionality on sensitive technology transfers, and open warmth toward Pakistan. The Trump administration's outreach to Islamabad, a $686 million F-16 package in December 2025, and repeated claims of having brokered the May ceasefire, may be read as pressure applied by the US to register its displeasure with India. This means that the US can tolerate Indian-Russian engagement, but any Sino-Indian accommodation draws a sharp reaction.

The concern of Moscow and Beijing is that India not turn its Western ties into an instrument used directly against them. Lavrov has said publicly that the QUAD draws India into ''games'' against China, yet this has not disturbed Russian arms sales or oil exports, and Beijing has raised no comparable objection to India's Gulf and European corridors. What both want, instead, is India's continued, active presence inside BRICS+.

India's own interest seemingly sits between these two poles rather than inside either. It wants BRICS+ membership and Russian energy on one side, QUAD partnership and Western capital and technology on the other. India also wants the standing to use each relationship as leverage against the other whenever convenient, extracting benefit from both camps without binding itself to either.

All of this, the Russia-India arms relationship and Beijing's tolerance of it, Washington's tariffs and its discomfort with how India directs Western capability at Pakistan rather than China, and India's own balancing act across the QUAD, BRICS and IMEC, resolves into a single variable: how long can India's so-called strategic autonomy doctrine hold. If India remains embedded in RIC architecture, BRICS+ consolidates as a strong multipolar institution. If India exits toward full Western alignment, BRICS+ hollows out, as India was always the member lending it credibility rather than mere size.

None of these interests; American, Russian, Chinese, or Indian, point toward any moderation of India's posture towards Pakistan. Islamabad should therefore plan for sustained competition rather than relief, investing in credible deterrence against India, and diversifying economic and strategic partnerships particularly in its western neighbourhood. Also, President Trump’s warmth towards Pakistan or periodic irritation with New Delhi should not be mistaken for any long-term Pak-US strategic alignment, as India stays a strategic partner for the US against China.