By Chelsea Robin | 2026-05-25

The ongoing war in Iran, maritime security and global oil reserves dominated high-level diplomatic talks hosted by India in May.

As BRICS foreign ministers gathered in New Delhi May 14-15, US President Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing. Just days after Trump's state visit to Beijing, Xi hosted Russian leader Vladimir Putin for face-to-face talks.

The timing of these meetings thrust India's strategic ambitions into the spotlight, as the world's largest democracy has shifted into the fast lane toward becoming a global power, analysts say.

The BRICS foreign ministers' meeting was a precursor to the 18th BRICS summit scheduled for September 12-13, during which India will host world leaders from within and beyond the coalition of emerging economies.

BRICS is an acronym for the 2009 founding members Brazil, Russia, India and China, and South Africa, which joined a year later.

In 2024, the group added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, followed by Indonesia last year. Saudi Arabia is listed as an official member but has not confirmed full membership.

Dueling meetings

"Amid mounting global uncertainties, the upcoming summit of BRICS in New Delhi is shaping up to be far more than a routine diplomatic gathering," India Today reported May 20. "With [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin confirmed to attend and Xi Jinping also likely to participate, the significance of the summit has grown considerably."

Washington likely will be watching the September BRICS summit closely.

Following the "very successful" and "historic" meeting between Trump and Xi in May, the US president invited the Chinese leader to the White House for a second face-to-face meeting -- also in September.

"The timing of the BRICS summit and the presence of the leaders from Russia and China -- the two prominent nations in the bloc -- expected to attend is particularly significant amid visible internal divisions within the bloc over key geopolitical issues, especially the Iran war," India Today reported.

Following the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting, India hosted another meeting of foreign ministers on May 26.

Foreign ministers from Australia, Japan and the United States joined their Indian counterpart for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or "the Quad" -- an informal diplomatic partnership designed to check China's growing economic and military influence in the Indo-Pacific.

Strategic autonomy

While taking the lead at the two meetings in May and the BRICS summit in September, India is demonstrating the core of its foreign policy: strategic autonomy -- or the freedom to pursue its national interests without being bound to any one major power bloc.

India simultaneously maintains functional diplomatic relations with China, the European Union (EU), the Global South, Russia, and the United States and NATO partners.

Within BRICS alone, India must navigate the tense relationship between fellow members Iran and the United Arab Emirates, whose armed forces have been trading blows, as well as its own fraught but thawing relations with China.

New Delhi hopes this "friendly with everyone" approach will yield both internal benefits and global clout.

By aligning with multiple strategic allies, however, India risks spreading itself thin, according to Minhaz Merchant, an Indian journalist and media entrepreneur.

"Strategic autonomy is India's guiding geopolitical principle. But stretched too far, it can morph into passive neutrality," he warned May 17 in Voice of India. "That is not how a nation makes the transition from a Middle Power to a Great Power."

To achieve global power status, Merchant said, India "needs more governance and less bureaucracy, more reforms and less regulation, more assertive engagement with the rest of the world and less passive neutrality."

Others say India is quickly developing into a global power to be reckoned with.

"India -- long described as a 'sleeping giant' -- is no longer sleeping," EU Reporter founder Colin Stevens wrote in an article published January 27.

"Across geopolitics, economics, technology, defense, demographics and diplomacy, India is emerging as a fully-fledged global power, not merely an 'emerging market' but a system-shaping actor," he added.

'Pivotal actor' in Indo-Pacific

From a geopolitical standpoint, India is at the center of the world's most critical sea lanes.

To India's west is the Strait of Hormuz, which separates Iran to the north and the United Arab Emirates and Oman to the south. An estimated 40% of the world's seaborne traded oil passes through this vital waterway, now in crisis due to the ongoing war in Iran.

Another 35% of the world's seaborne oil trade passes through the Strait of Malacca, between Malaysia and Indonesia, which connects the Indian and Pacific oceans via the South China Sea.

The Bab al-Mandeb Strait, also under pressure due to ongoing war and insecurity, lies between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, providing a strategic link from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and beyond to European markets.

"As tensions rise in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, India's role in safeguarding freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean has taken on global significance," Stevens said.

"Through strategic groupings such as the Quad, India has positioned itself as a balancing power -- not an ally of any bloc, but a pivotal actor whose cooperation is essential to Indo-Pacific stability," he added.