Rajnath unveils 10-year defence diplomacy roadmap for global partnerships

Experts say announcement signals the country can both project power and offer stability amid global uncertainties

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday unveiled a document on India’s defence diplomacy for the coming decade at an organised gathering of officials in New Delhi. 

In a media statement, the Ministry of Defence described the document as an outline of India’s strategic road map and a vision for global defence partnerships. “It marks a shift in India’s strategic engagement, aligning national security objectives with proactive global cooperation, fostering long-term stability and mutual growth.”

 

A first of its kind for India, the document signals the country can both project power and offer stability to the world amid geopolitical uncertainties, experts said.

 

Released ahead of the 18th Brics summit that India will host over September 12-13, the document calls defence diplomacy “a core pillar of India’s foreign policy” and provides “a clear, actionable vision” for the next 10 years to ensure India remains “an anchor of peace, stability, and rule-based order in an evolving global landscape”.

 

 

“This announcement is definitely an evolution,” Lieutenant General Raj Shukla (retired) said. “For a long time, diplomacy was dictated by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Now, the role of force is being acknowledged.”

 

He said that the country could earn revenue by exporting defence goods was not talked about much earlier.

 The timing is significant because hard power is a central organising idea in geopolitics today, he added. 

 The document outlines deepening strategic partnerships through bilateral and multilateral security cooperation; building capacity by enhancing joint military exercises, training programmes and sharing best practices with “friendly” countries; promoting domestically made defence platforms to establish India “as a reliable global defence-manufacturing hub”; and strengthening the country’s maritime role as “a net security provider and first responder” in the Indian Ocean region. 

 

“India is trying to project that it can engage with the world in a different way, too,” Commodore Uday Bhaskar (retired) said, adding that until now a formalised document of this nature didn’t exist in the country. 

“In the maritime domain, it will provide a frame of reference for what we need to do,” he said.

 

Defence attaches in Indian missions overseas are expected to benefit from it.

 

“The Raksha document is a felicitously released framework that will guide both internal and external stakeholders in engaging with Bharat to mutual benefit,” Anshuman Tripathi, a former member of the National Security Advisory Board, said. 

 

Raksha (a Hindi word, derived from “to protect” in Sanskrit) is the government name for the defence-diplomacy strategy booklet, which is not a public document.

 

Defence diplomacy is not just alignment, Tripathi said, adding that India is a rare country where the armed forces use equipment from different countries, ranging (in political systems) from Russia to the United States, but India also makes defence items, especially when needed for specific purposes such as the Prachand attack helicopter, designed for very high altitudes. 

 

The announcement offers stability in a hyperdynamic world, where conflict is also a constant, he said.

 

While details of the 10-year plan are unknown, experts said it is a step in the right direction, but cautioned that challenges remain.

 

India needs to acquire more military capabilities, particularly technologies “to have our words match our deeds”. To become a net security provider in the Indian Ocean region, it should heed the lessons from the Strait of Hormuz crisis, Bhaskar said.

 

Rear Admiral Raja Menon (retired) said the MEA and the Indian Navy have coordinated positions well in the past. 

India is trying to balance power, but it should understand China’s long game better, he added.