India strengthens defense ties with Southeast Asia, exporting BrahMos missiles and boosting security amid South China Sea tensions with China.

NEW DELHI — India is strengthening military ties with Southeast Asian countries through agreements to sell modern missiles and increasing security cooperation in an area where numerous countries are embroiled in maritime conflicts with China in the South China Sea.

According to analysts, New Delhi’s outreach to countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam demonstrates its expanding strategic position in the Indo-Pacific region. It also compliments the US and its allies’ efforts to counterweight China in the region.

“India is a relatively new player in the region, where countries are trying to build up their own capacities,” according to Chintamani Mahapatra, founder of the Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies in young Delhi.

“China is an important economic partner for these nations, but at the same time poses a security challenge, so they want to strengthen themselves in handling Beijing,” he told me by telephone.

Last month, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met with his Indonesian counterpart, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, in New Delhi to discuss the supply of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to Jakarta. A agreement would make Indonesia the second country to acquire the missiles, which are manufactured in a joint venture with Russia in which India owns the majority part.

Although the BrahMos missile, the centerpiece of New Delhi’s defense sales in Southeast Asia, was developed in conjunction with Russia, analysts believe it will not increase Russia’s role as an arms provider in the region.

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“Russia has been under sanctions since the Ukraine war, so countries would be extremely wary of any purchases from Moscow,” said Rahul Bedi, a defense analyst in New Delhi, by phone.

Last year, India began delivering a shore-based, anti-ship BrahMos missile system to the Philippines under a $375 million contract, and deliveries are still ongoing. Manila began purchasing the system to strengthen its naval defense as its relations with Beijing are strained by repeated conflicts with China in the South China Sea, which China claims mostly as its own.

In recent years, India has upgraded relations with numerous nations, including Indonesia and Vietnam, to a comprehensive strategic partnership, which entails increasing connections in a variety of areas such as the economics, defense, and technology. New Delhi has also assisted in training troops from numerous Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, as well as conducting joint naval and military drills with them.

India’s rising role in improving the military capacities of tiny East Asian countries has been aided by its growing defense ties with the United States.

On the margins of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers’ conference in Malaysia in October, India and the United States signed a 10-year defense cooperation agreement.

“This advances our defense partnership, a cornerstone for regional stability and deterrence,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X following the signing.

Analysts believe that the US-India security collaboration has deepened India’s integration into the Southeast Asian security architecture.

“It is part of a concerted U.S. effort to push its allies and partners to build closer political and security ties to reduce Washington'[s] burden of balancing China in the region,” Ivan Lidarev, a visiting research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies, said in an email.

“The goal of this ‘latticework strategy’ is to establish an interconnected network of defense, economic, and supply chain alliances in the Indo-Pacific. India, as a geostrategically important US partner in balancing China, is a major component in this,” he stated.

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He also emphasized that the United States is not the only element driving improved relations.

“India and its Southeast Asian partners are pursuing their own strategic interests through their partnerships and not merely responding to American encouragement,” says Lidarev.

Analysts say India’s growing role in Southeast Asian security highlights the importance of these countries developing their own deterrence capabilities, which is critical given present ambiguity regarding the US strategy in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Due to current geostrategic uncertainty and the necessity to extend alternatives at a time when China continues to have a stronger grip on Southeast Asia’s diverse maritime zones, diversification is unquestionably a sensible step, and India appears to be an ideal partner. So we are seeing a lot of effort by New Delhi and the Philippines, for example, to build resilience,” says Don McLain Gill, a geopolitical analyst and lecturer at De La Salle University’s Department of International Studies in Manila.

Acquiring weaponry and defense technologies from India underscores Southeast Asian countries’ reluctance to rely on the United States as the single security provider or main defense supplier in the Indo-Pacific. While considering other options, military hardware acquisitions from New Delhi appear to be an appealing choice because they avoid the possibility of sanctions associated with purchases from Russia or China.

Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., chief of staff of the Philippine Armed Forces, stated in August that Manila will receive more military equipment from India due to price and quality, according to the official Philippine News Agency.

“India is selling weapons with no strings attached. When the US or China sell weapons, there are real or intangible ties connected, thus it is simpler for Southeast Asian countries to form alliances with India than with major powers,” Mahapatra said.

“At the same time, India wants to emerge as a defense exporter, so it is a win-win situation for both sides,” added the diplomat.