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The latest ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) sequence in Kuala Lumpur reaffirmed the grouping’s growing importance as a stabilising mechanism in a region increasingly marked by geopolitical frictions. At the multilateral level, the ADMM and ADMM-Plus engagements continued to focus on shared challenges, maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), counter-terrorism, cyber resilience, and the need for reliable crisis-communication channels to prevent miscalculation. The platform, importantly, sustained ASEAN’s centrality in shaping defence conversations in the Indo-Pacific, ensuring that no single power, whether the United States, China, or any other state, dominates the regional security narrative. For ASEAN, ADMM-Plus remains essential not because it resolves disputes, but because it keeps dialogue open and stabilises expectations. It is one of the few regional arrangements where defence ministers from India, the United States, China, Japan, Australia, Russia, South Korea, and New Zealand sit at the same table, exchange threat assessments, and explore practical cooperation. In an Indo-Pacific environment marked by territorial contests, incremental coercion, and growing naval deployments, the mere existence of such a mechanism provides diplomatic oxygen. This year’s meetings helped ensure that even amid strategic mistrust, military channels do not atrophy. India’s Strategic Messaging: Act-East In Action India’s role in the ADMM-Plus architecture was deliberate and forward-looking. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh highlighted two key themes: first, that India’s defence cooperation with ASEAN is a tangible pillar of its Act-East policy; and second, that India’s Indo-Pacific vision is inclusive, anchored in sovereignty, openness, and the rule of law. This rhetoric aligns India with the aspirations of Southeast Asian states, which prefer flexible partnerships over bloc politics and distances New Delhi from models of security alignment that risk provoking confrontation. India made clear that its push for maritime stability and capacity-building is not directed against any one country. This careful positioning is crucial. As China’s military footprint expands, and as the US seeks deeper alignments to counter Beijing, ASEAN states seek reassurance that India’s engagement will enhance regional autonomy rather than tether them to rivalry. By emphasising transparency and norms over alignment, India projected itself as a stabilising actor principled yet pragmatic, assertive yet non-confrontational. Rajnath Singh encapsulated this approach through India’s commitment under the concept of MAHASAGAR, a vision linking the Indian Ocean and the Pacific as a unified strategic space where cooperation must prevail over competition. India’s co-chairmanship of the ADMM-Plus Experts’ Working Group on Counter-Terrorism (with Malaysia) for the 2024-2027 cycle is a practical demonstration of this vision. The first meeting, hosted in New Delhi in March 2025, set the tone for a comprehensive approach to extremism, combining capacity-building, best-practice sharing, and intelligence collaboration. A table-top exercise in Malaysia (2026) and a field training exercise in India (2027) are already scheduled, reflecting long-term continuity rather than episodic engagement. India’s track record in previous ADMM-Plus working groups on Humanitarian Mine Action with Vietnam (2014-2017), Military Medicine with Myanmar (2017-2020), and HADR with Indonesia (2020-2024) shows that New Delhi’s contribution is systematic, sustained, and oriented toward functional capability enhancement. Moreover, the announcement that 2026 will be celebrated as the “ASEAN–India Year of Maritime Cooperation” further deepens this direction, with ASEAN navies invited to MILAN and the International Fleet Review. The India–US Defence Partnership: A Strategic Anchor Perhaps the most consequential outcome on the margins of ADMM-Plus was the signing of a ten-year India–US defence framework. The agreement, inked by Rajnath Singh and US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, is designed to strengthen interoperability, joint training, logistics cooperation, technology sharing, and defence-industrial collaboration. It also opens pathways for procurement and co-development of advanced platforms, notably in maritime surveillance, a domain central to Indo-Pacific stability. This long-term framework is significant for two reasons. First, it signals strategic continuity in India-US defence cooperation despite occasional diplomatic disagreements elsewhere. Second, it provides ballast to the broader Indo-Pacific architecture by demonstrating that partnerships can deepen without hard alliance commitments. In other words, India retains strategic autonomy while engaging in meaningful strategic convergence. Hegseth’s simultaneous outreach to both India and China on crisis communication and maritime safety also signalled Washington’s intent to maintain military dialogue even amid competition. For India, the optics were clear: New Delhi is strengthening ties with the US but will not be drawn into bloc politics. Expanding Bilateral Partnerships Across The Indo-Pacific Beyond the US, Rajnath Singh’s bilateral engagements in Kuala Lumpur highlighted India’s multidirectional defence diplomacy. Discussions with the defence ministers of Vietnam, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, and Malaysia focused on expanding training exchanges, maritime cooperation, and defence-industrial collaboration. Vietnam remains a particularly important partner. Both countries share concerns about coercion in the South China Sea, and defence ties, including naval exercises and potential equipment transfers, have grown steadily. With South Korea and New Zealand, cooperation centred around logistics, joint exercises, and rapid-delivery defence engagements demonstrates a shift from declaratory diplomacy to operational activity. These meetings followed Rajnath Singh’s visit to Australia, marking five years of the India-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, where agreements on information-sharing, submarine search and rescue, and defence industry cooperation were concluded. The inaugural India-Australia Defence Industry Roundtable in Sydney underscored a growing focus on defence manufacturing, innovation, and supply chain resilience. ADMM-Plus As An Architecture Of Practical Cooperation The Kuala Lumpur meetings reaffirmed the real value of ADMM-Plus: it is not a military alliance or a platform for grand strategic declarations. Instead, it is a convening structure that normalises defence diplomacy, reduces friction, and builds habits of cooperation. Through working groups, training exchanges, exercises, and maritime coordination, ADMM-Plus fosters interoperability and trust at the operational level. In a region where tensions are rising, whether in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, or the Andaman Sea, such mechanisms are indispensable. India’s approach to ADMM-Plus reflects a calibrated and confident regional strategy. By deepening defence cooperation without choosing sides, reinforcing ASEAN centrality, advancing counter-terrorism and maritime capacity-building, and securing a long-term strategic partnership with the United States, New Delhi demonstrated that defence diplomacy remains a core instrument of its Act-East and Indo-Pacific vision. As the Indo-Pacific continues to evolve into a landscape of overlapping and complementary security partnerships rather than rigid blocs, India’s balanced, institutional, and pragmatic engagement offers a pathway toward stability anchored in rules, partnership, and shared responsibility. The writer is a technocrat, political analyst, and author. He pens national, geopolitical, and social issues. His social media handle is @prosenjitnth. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
