India’s defence diplomacy reached a new high this last week as Defence Minister Rajnath Singh embarked on a landmark visit to Australia, a move that underscored New Delhi’s growing commitment to building resilient, future-ready partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.
The visit came at a time of heightened regional uncertainty, with both nations recognising the urgency to consolidate security mechanisms, diversify supply chains, and strengthen operational convergence across air, land, and maritime domains.
At the inaugural Australia-India Defence Ministers’ Dialogue, the emphasis was clear: this was no routine interaction but a bold step towards forging a strategic framework rooted in regular institutional dialogues and collaborative initiatives. From signing key agreements on submarine rescue and information sharing to mapping a joint maritime security roadmap, the outcomes highlighted a shared resolve to pivot from transactional engagement to genuine long-term partnership.
Crucially, the visit placed industry collaboration, technology transfer, and capacity building centre stage, inviting deeper commercial and academic ties.
With both sides reaffirming support for freedom of navigation and a rules-based order, the Australia visit signals India’s readiness to play a more proactive and sophisticated role in shaping the security architecture of the Indo-Pacific region.
The inaugural Australia-India Defence Ministers’ Dialogue in October 2025 marks a pivotal moment in the strategic trajectory of Indo-Pacific security dynamics. Against an evolving backdrop of power plays and region-wide realignments, the progress at this summit signals a meaningful leap from high-level political statements to an operationally anchored, technology-driven, and industrially synergistic defence partnership.
Maritime Security at the Core
The Australia-India defence relationship has travelled a considerable distance since the elevation of their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2020. Whereas earlier conversations were largely aspirational, piecemeal, or constrained by structural inertia, recent years have seen the bilateral agenda mature through sustained high-level engagements, including four meetings between the defence ministers and multiple summits.
This Dialogue not only crystallised shared strategic anxieties over a contested Indo-Pacific, but operationalised political intent into annualised strategic consultations, a Joint Maritime Security Collaboration Roadmap, and tangible mechanisms for real-time information sharing.
The centrepiece of the 2025 Dialogue was the a Joint Maritime Security Collaboration Roadmap, a concept with both practical and symbolic value. The Indo-Pacific’s maritime commons are increasingly seen as contested and vulnerable, making joint maritime awareness, coordinated anti-submarine operations, and reciprocal deployments central to regional order. The prime ministers of both countries have actively pushed for this, seeking to renew and strengthen their Joint Declaration on Defence and Security Cooperation.
Australia’s welcoming of Indian participation in premier exercises like Talisman Sabre, and India’s invitation for Australia to join the Black Carillon submarine rescue exercise reflects growing comfort with each other’s operational philosophies and readiness to shoulder regional responsibilities.
The dialogue’s language on upholding freedom of navigation and affirming the law of the sea demonstrates convergence in outlook and willingness to uphold a rules-based maritime order.
Crucially, the bilateral defence architecture is becoming not just more extensive, but more consultative and adaptive. Establishing annual Defence Ministers’ Dialogues and formalizing Joint Staff Talks enables a continuous, agile mechanism for coordination, reducing bureaucratic drag and deepening interoperability. The signing of the Australia-India Implementing Arrangement on Mutual Submarine Rescue Support and Cooperation is a case in point,,it institutionalises practical support in high-risk scenarios and amplifies mutual trust.
Air Operational Synergy
There is also a clear trajectory toward enhancing air operational synergy, with efforts to operationalise the Air-to-Air Refuelling arrangement signed in 2024 a boost for complex, long-range joint air operations. The Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement underpins a framework for joint exercises, rapid force mobility, and exchanges that increase both the frequency and technical sophistication of cooperation.
Perhaps the most promising and complex area is industrial collaboration. As the ministers underscored, defence industry partnerships are no longer peripheral: they are central to diversifying supply chains, fostering technological indigenisation, and reducing strategic dependencies. The first Australian defence trade mission to India, the India Pavilion at Australia’s Land Forces Expo, and the high-level Defence Industry Roundtable all signal a desire to drive co-development, technology transfer, and joint research.
Australia brings to the table advanced niche capabilities, quantum systems, Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (UUVs) and maritime surveillance while India’s strengths in shipbuilding, software, and materials science are tangible force multipliers. The push for joint working groups on Defence Industry, Research, and Materiel, as well as Indian shipyards’ offering MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul) for Royal Australian Navy assets, exemplifies the vision for a true ‘make together, create together’ partnership.
The increasing presence of Indian officers at the Australian Defence College and the establishment of a position at the Australian Defence Force Academy for the first time are not token gestures but deliberate investments in long-term human capital development and cross-cultural defence literacy. Frequent bilateral and multilateral exercises whether Exercise Puk Puk (amphibious), Austrahind (counter-terror), or participation in navy-to-navy and air force engagements—where talk is transformed into interoperability. The roadmap foresees expanding such activities in both scope and complexity, underpinned by the Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement.
Subject-matter exchanges in missile defence, secure comms, counter-UAS, and special operations training ensure that both militaries remain future-ready, learning from each other’s doctrines and operational lessons.
What sets the Australia-India defence dynamic apart is its multitude of regional and multilateral touch-points. The two remain committed Quad members, collaborating seamlessly with the United States and Japan. Cooperative frameworks extend to joint maritime surveillance, coordinated patrols, and trilateral activities such as the Australia-India-Indonesia format for addressing common challenges. The sight of Indian, Japanese, Australian, and US forces operating together in Malabar and Cope India exercises speaks to the rising comfort and mutual confidence amongst like-minded partners.
The focus on collaborative maritime domain awareness initiatives, paired with a steadfast commitment to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific, underscores both countries’ desire for a stable order and their willingness to bear the operational and financial costs that go with it.
Challenges persist notably in aligning different acquisition systems, managing the speed of technology transfer amid regulatory barriers, and keeping pace with fast-evolving threats from grey-zone warfare to anti-access/area denial capabilities. Yet, the elevation of India as a “Top Tier Partner” by Australia, and the removal of certain tech-sharing restrictions, reflects growing bilateral trust.
A Defining Decade Ahead
The India-Australia defence relationship, once a footnote in the longer story of Indo-Pacific alignments, now stands at the forefront of collective security design. By anchoring their partnership in both operational depth and industrial vision, Canberra and New Delhi are not only reacting to a shifting security environment but are shaping it together.
As India continues its march as the fastest-growing major economy, and Australia innovates at the leading edge of quantum and undersea technologies, this partnership offers a template for meaningful, mutually beneficial, and future-focused defence cooperation. The next decade could and should be defined by co-created capabilities, fluid interoperability, shared industrial bases, and a vision that is as ambitious for their own people as it is for the Indo-Pacific’s future.
(Gaurav Kumar is a Research Assistant at United Service Institution of India, India’s oldest defence think tank. This is an opinion piece. All views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)