Diplomacy is as old as the ancient Roman Empire. However, with the evolution of international political structure and the evolution of human cognition, the nature of diplomacy has undergone myriad paradigmatic changes. Diplomacy in the 21^st century is said to be based on new innovative tools such as food, animals (panda diplomacy of China), culture and other socio-economic tools.

However one institution, which has and will continue to play a crucial role in, the traditional and modern means of conducting diplomacy, is the military or armed forces of a country. As the trademark of hard power, the military has traditionally been associated with the display of raw strength and might of any nation-state. It has traditionally been used for not just external protection but also for conducting coercive diplomacy like the gun-boat diplomacy of USA which was conducted against Japan in the second half of the 19^th century.

India is no different in the process of conducting diplomacy. However, conducting diplomacy by the means of military is perhaps a new innovation in India’s diplomatic parlance. Traditionally in the Indian diplomatic and foreign policy community, diplomacy was carried out by the ministers and diplomats that largely belong to the old school. Track II and III diplomacy were the new modes of diplomacy. The military has largely remained aloof from the issue of promoting the country’s national interests in international forums.

However, the evolution of international political scenario since the end of cold war and Pakistan fomenting the ethno-religious insurgency in Kashmir since the 1990s, coupled with geopolitical and security issues, are some of the factors that have necessitated larger and more active involvement of the Indian armed forces in the foreign policy matrix of the country.

The security forces, particularly the external armed forces, have been one of the linchpins of the Modi government’s diplomacy. Since 2014, the Modi government has bolstered the use of military in the diplomacy of the country. The unveiling of the SAGAR (security and growth for all in the region) doctrine by Prime Minister NarendraModi at a speech in Mauritius in 2015 which sought to bolster India’s commitment and presence in the strategic Indian Ocean Region (IOR) envisaged the active presence of the Indian Navy as playing the role of a potential security provider and security giver. The Indian Navy is one of the largest navies in the world and boasts of a potent and lethal naval arsenal of over 120 ships which includes stealth frigates, destroyers, submarines (both conventional and nuclear powered), coastal vessels etc.

The Navy has since 2017 played a crucial role in carrying out military diplomacy particularly in the form of promoting a free open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. It has, through the plethora of naval exercises such as Milan and Malabar, demonstrated that it is committed not just to the protection of India’s own territories and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) but also would quickly come to the aid of its allies and would not desist from playing an offensive role against rivals most notably Pakistan and China.

But the focus of India’s defence or military diplomacy has been broadened in recent years. The particular focus has been on the issue of defence autarky, the absolute necessity of which was felt in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. In recent years, India has been trying and has been quite successful in weaning its image from being a defence importer to that of a defence exporter. India’s intense military diplomacy has been paying off with Philippines becoming the first country in the world to procure the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile batteries for a deal worth $375 million. Similarly, Bahrain has evinced interest in buying the new upgraded and more lethal Arjun Mark 2 tanks from India.

With regard to Egypt, India has of late built a robust military to military relationship characterised by regular military exercises, intelligence exchange, interoperability agreements etc.

However, India has also enhanced its diplomacy with countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Given China’s increasing belligerence in South-east Asia, India has built formidable military ties with China’s neighbours like Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan etc. This involves negotiating with these countries albeit with the exception of Japan under the framework of Quad+ with a strong emphasis on the military dimension. Also, India, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, ad Vietnam have been regularly involved in carrying out air force and naval exercises in trilateral and multilateral framework. South-east Asia appears to be a new yet strong focus area of India with regard to its use of military diplomacy.

Further, the outreach of India’s military diplomacy is evident from the presence of the Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) with its headquarters presently at Gurugram, Haryana. It serves as the institutional centre of keeping the Indian Ocean free from piracy, naval rivalry etc. The IFC-IOR is meant to promote synergy and esprit de corps among the regional littoral states. Recently, the Quad countries have pledged to contain illegal fishing by unidentified fishing vessels which are often escorted by naval vessels in an indirect yet firm reference to Chinese transgression of the EEZ. This is because China boasts of the world’s largest mechanized fishing vessel and their colossal catches threatens to undermine the already fragile fishery resources in the IOR in general and Indo-Pacific in particular.

A testimony to the growing use and popularity of military diplomacy is the conspicuous role played by the Indian armed forces in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) and transnational conflicts. This is evident from the fact that Indian air force organised large scale evacuations in the aftermath of the devastating 2004 Tsunami, 2015 Nepal earthquake, 2008 cyclone Nargis in Myanmar as well as the latest June 2022 earthquake in Afghanistan.  HADR remains an important focus area within the Quad, but India has also undertaken initiatives like the PANEX-21 exercise with the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) countries to envisage contingencies for such operations in the backdrop of the pandemic. Further, the Indian military has been instrumental in evacuating civilians of not just India but also other nationals like during Operation Rahat in Yemen in 2015, Operation Devi Shakti in Afghanistan in 2021 and Operation Ganga in Ukraine in 2022.

However, India’s defence diplomacy is not just limited to the Indo-Pacific region, it has expanded westward as well. The rapid turn of West Asian geopolitics in terms of peace and tranquillity has experienced a fillip thanks to the Abraham Accords of 2020 which normalised ties between Israel and four other Arab states – Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sudan and Morocco. In that context, India has been a net gainer as it conducted back-to-back joint naval exercises with the UAE (ZayedTalwar exercise), Bahrain (Maritime Partnership Exercise), and Saudi Arabia (Al-Mohed Al-Hindi exercise). Notably, the India-Saudi Arabia exercise was the first joint exercise between the two. Both countries have also had high-level military exchanges with respective army chiefs undertaking maiden visits — Indian Army Chief General MM Naravane in December 2020 and Chief of Saudi Arabia Land Forces, Commander Lt. Gen. Fahd Bin Abdullah Mohammed Al Mutair in February 2022.

The return of the diabolical Taliban regime has sparked concerns within India’s defence and foreign policy concerns that the possibility of a two front war has been aggravated to a two and a half front war with the distinct possibility of a Sinic-Islamist collusion to take on India in the event of any such extreme probabilities of war. In this context, India’s participation in the Regional Security Dialogue of November 2021, and the inaugural India-Central Asia summit of January 2022 underlined India’s approach towards the Afghan challenge, focusing on curbing the spread of terrorism and drug trafficking which continues to finance the Taliban regime and promote narco-terrorism.

At the top level, the establishment of the Chief of Defence Staff which stands at the apex of the military hierarchy has given a much-needed boost to India’s defence coordination. This is expected to not only formalise the notion of theatre commands but will help in ensuring that the highest defence officials can undertake concerted outreach so as to bolster the outreach of India’s defence prowess beyond its immediate neighbourhood to more and more geographical areas.

Summing up

The world is currently in a state of flux particularly due to the Russo-Ukraine war which has turned the west and the world’s attention to the security situation in Europe. While the outcome of the war is the key for India, it is absolutely crucial from the defence perspective. The sinking of the mammoth Moskva and the reverses that Russia suffered in its march towards Kiev showed that India needs to expeditiously expand its defence basket. India is, in fact doing so with the government ordering that important programs like the fighter jets, aircraft carriers be made increasingly from indigenous technology.

But defence diplomacy is not exclusive to foreign policy. Hence instead of pursuing an independent course per se both the foreign and defence policies should work in tandem and should ensure that the national interests of the country are placed first.

– The writer is currently working as a Research Associate at Defence Research and Studies (dras.in) and is a columnist. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda