India-Australia defence ties: Advancing a vital Indo-Pacific partnership

I. The strategic context

India–Australia strategic relations were traditionally constrained by four major factors. One was the political logic of the Cold War (1945–1991), during which Australia allied closely with Britain and the United States, and India remained non-aligned before tilting to the Soviet Union after 1971. This resulted in, among other things, Australia enjoying closer security relations with India’s strategic rival Pakistan during the late Cold War and the immediate post-Cold War periods. The legacy of this era endures. Australia remains embedded in US alliance networks, while India continues to stand apart from many formal structures — an asymmetry that complicates bilateral security cooperation to this day.

A second factor was India’s nuclear weapons program, which contributed to US-led export controls against the country, particularly after its Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) of 1974. The resulting export control regime long constrained strategic cooperation between New Delhi and US allies, including Australia. Certain export control-related constraints that continue to bedevil India–Australia defence industrial cooperation are sometimes a consequence of earlier restrictions.

Third, the economic and commercial relationship between India and Australia was thin, with Canberra prioritising Asia-Pacific economic partners in Northeast and Southeast Asia in the 1990s and early 2000s. And fourth, people-to-people relations were traditionally weak, a problem exacerbated by the White Australia policy until the 1970s. Defence contacts during these early years were infrequent but included Australian participation in India’s professional military education institutions, such as the Defence Services Staff College, and a one-off multilateral air force exercise in India in 1963, a year after the 1962 Sino-Indian border war.⁸

Following India’s 1998 nuclear tests, which initially led to restrictive international sanctions against the country, the United States led efforts to re-engage India and lower barriers to strategic technology commerce. Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s visit to India in 2000 helped to re-establish normal ties between Canberra and New Delhi. Bilateral defence talks were initiated earlier that year, and 2001 saw the first strategic dialogue between the Indian and Australian governments. Security cooperation grew in fits and starts over the following two decades. In 2004, the two countries’ militaries coordinated humanitarian assistance, along with the United States and Japan, following the Indian Ocean tsunami. In 2006, India and Australia signed an MoU on defence cooperation. The next year witnessed the first Quad dialogue and multilateral Malabar naval exercises in the Indian Ocean. In 2008, Australia withdrew from the Quad. The immediate aftermath represented a low point in bilateral ties, when attacks against Indian students in Australia defined perceptions of the relationship.⁹

Nonetheless, both governments sought to rebuild cooperation in the years that followed, motivated in part by changing threat perceptions. China’s more forceful claims in the South China Sea, its rare-earth restrictions on Japan, incidents of Chinese hacking and interference, and the Doklam standoff between the Indian and Chinese armies in 2017 contributed to these trends. As early as November 2009, India and Australia signed their first Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation. In 2011, negotiations began on a trade agreement, and the Julia Gillard government agreed to export uranium to India. The first visit to Australia by an Indian defence minister occurred in 2013, and a framework for security cooperation was signed during Modi’s first visit to Australia as prime minister in 2014. The next years saw the first major bilateral naval exercise between the two countries in the Bay of Bengal, followed by army exercises in 2016. In 2017, the Quad was revived along with a secretary-level 2+2 foreign and defence ministry dialogue and defence policy talks. A year later, the Indian Air Force took part in Exercise Pitch Black in Darwin for the first time, and the Australian government released its India Economic Strategy.

The two countries’ closer cooperation accelerated along with their changing threat perceptions, especially after 2019. For Australia, concerns about China’s coercive activities and military assertiveness grew. These were fuelled by various developments including a cyberattack on Australia’s Parliament House network in 2019, widely attributed to China; Chinese tariffs and restrictions on Australian barley, coal, beef, wine, and other exports; a list of 14 grievances against Australia issued by the Chinese Embassy in 2020; Beijing’s security pact with Solomon Islands in 2022; and a naval circumnavigation of Australia by a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy task force and live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea in 2025.¹⁰ For India, the 2020 border clashes, which followed a large-scale PLA mobilisation and killed 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops, contributed to deteriorating relations with Beijing. China’s security activities in the Indian Ocean region, its military and economic support for Pakistan, and the large trade surplus in China’s favour contributed further to India–China rivalry. New Delhi retaliated in 2020 with economic measures including banning Chinese apps, screening investment, blocking Chinese companies from its telecommunications network, and excluding Chinese bids from public procurement.¹¹

In addition to these concerns, Australia and India have had to contend with a more mercurial United States. In part, the resurrection of the Quad in 2017 was motivated by a desire to keep the United States engaged in the Indo-Pacific. Both countries pursued deepening security cooperation with the United States during Joe Biden’s presidency (2021–2025). For Australia, this included the announcement of AUKUS, an arrangement to acquire nuclear-powered submarines and emerging military technologies.¹² For India, it included the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), covering semiconductors, space, defence, telecommunications, and other emerging technologies; collaboration on jet engine production, human spaceflight, and critical minerals; and a security-of-supply arrangement for defence articles.¹³ Although the second Trump administration has continued many of these initiatives from 2025, in some cases after rebranding, uncertainty over US trade and tariff policy, defence priorities, and engagement with China has pushed India and Australia (as well as other US allies and partners) to diversify their security and trade relationships.

Geography also plays an important role. Australia and India sit at opposite ends of the Indian Ocean, a vast and increasingly contested body of water with few capable resident powers. For both trading economies, securing the Indian Ocean’s sea lines of communication (SLOCs) is vital — from the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Cape of Good Hope in the west to the Straits of Malacca, Lombok, and Sunda in the east. The eastern straits, the gateway to East Asian markets, are especially important to them. Closer maritime cooperation can help the two countries secure their vast coastlines and give each operational access to a critical region: the Middle East for Australia and the South and West Pacific for India.