Eurasia

Why in News?

• Recently, the world is embracing a ‘new normal’ where old and new fault lines are being reconfigured in Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific.

Highlights

• The idea of Eurasia is not new. Many used it as a neutral term to describe the vast landmass that connected Europe and Asia.
• Despite continental continuity, Europe and Asia emerged as separate political and cultural spheres over the millennia.
• Geographically, Eurasia is a tectonic plate that lies under much of Europe and Asia. However, when it comes to the political boundaries, there is no shared international understanding of what constitutes the region.
• Japan is trying to build strong military partnerships with Europe, while South Korea, which does not always see eye to eye with Japan, is also trying to raise its profile in Europe.
• South Korea is selling major weapons platforms in Poland.
• Australia, which has joined the US and UK in the AUKUS (Australia, the UK and the US) arrangement, is equally eager to bring Europe into the Indo-Pacific.
• Together Japan, South Korea and Australia are bridging the divide between Asia and Europe long seen as separate geopolitical theaters.
• This process has been accelerated by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the alliance between Russia and China. This new dynamic presents challenges as well as opportunities for India. But first to the emergence of a new Eurasia.
• Well before Japan and South Korea turned to Europe, it was China and Russia who altered the geopolitical dynamic in Eurasia.
• Days before the Russia-Ukraine War, both Russia and China signed an agreement declaring an alliance “without limits” and no “forbidden areas”.
• China, which had made a largely successful effort to cultivate Europe since 1990s, deliberately avoided taking sides in Europe’s conflicts with Russia.
• India must devote similar energy as Japan and South Korea do to the development of a “Eurasian” policy. If the Indo-Pacific is about Delhi’s new maritime geopolitics, Eurasia involves the recalibration of India’s continental strategy.
• India, over the decades, has dealt with Eurasia’s constituent spaces separately but what Delhi now needs is an integrated approach to set a strong foothold in Eurasia.
• India will surely encounter many contradictions in its path between and among the USA, Europe, Russia, China, Iran, and the Arab Gulf but it should not let these contradictions hold India back.
• The key for India lies in greater strategic activism that opens opportunities in all directions in Eurasia.