The New Arsenal of Democracy

A ten-year defence pact between India and the United States signals not just military cooperation, but a strategic recalibration in Asia’s balance of power.

Late last month, India and the United States signed a ten-year defence cooperation agreement in Kuala Lumpur that could well reshape the strategic map of Asia. The pact, sealed between India’s Ministry of Defence and the U.S. Department of Defence, extends and expands an existing strategic framework established in 2016, when India was formally designated a ‘Major Defence Partner.’ It marks a decade-long renewal of that understanding, promising joint ventures in advanced military technologies from jet-engine production to joint exercises and logistics sharing.

Cautious Courting

India’s military courtship with the United States has been a slow, deliberate affair. During the Cold War, New Delhi tilted towards Moscow, which supplied roughly 70 percent of its defence hardware. Washington, meanwhile, viewed India through the lens of non-alignment - a posture it found frustratingly aloof.

That detente began to shift after the 1962 Sino-Indian war. When China invaded across the Himalayan frontier, President John F. Kennedy extended emergency military assistance to India in what was a rare episode of intimacy. But the warmth soon waned, as India returned to Soviet arms deals and the U.S. courted Pakistan as a bulwark against communism.

The post-Cold War years changed the calculus. The 1998 nuclear tests, though condemned by Washington, paradoxically forced both sides to engage seriously. By the mid-2000s, the Indo-U.S. Civil Nuclear Agreement under George W. Bush heralded a new era of pragmatic cooperation. What was once a ‘hyphenated’ relationship filtered through America’s ties with Pakistan became a direct partnership rooted in shared democratic and strategic interests.

By 2016, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama, India was granted the status of Major Defence Partner, a designation that opened doors to advanced U.S. technologies. Subsequent logistics and communications agreements like LEMOA, COMCASA and BECA integrated India more closely with the U.S. military system than at any point in its post-independence history. The new pact signed in Kuala Lumpur is, in essence, a consolidation of these gains.

Changing World Order

The significance of the agreement cannot be divorced from its timing. The Indo-Pacific is today the arena of great-power rivalry. China’s rapid militarisation of the South China Sea, its Belt and Road footprint in the Indian Ocean, and its border skirmishes with India have converged to make Beijing a shared strategic concern.

In this fraught landscape, the India-U.S. defence partnership serves a dual function: deterring China and reinforcing a liberal order that both countries insist upon.

For Washington, deepening defence ties with India aligns with its broader Indo-Pacific strategy. Having witnessed the erosion of its strategic advantage in East Asia, America views India not merely as a partner but as an indispensable counterweight to China’s expanding influence. The symbolism of extending the pact for ten years underscores America’s bet that India will remain the democratic pillar of Asia’s security architecture.

For New Delhi, the calculus is more complex. India seeks to modernise its defence industry, long plagued by bureaucratic lethargy and technological dependence. By co-developing jet engines and fighter platforms with American firms, India hopes to leapfrog into the ranks of advanced defence producers. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), long criticised for its insularity, now finds itself at the centre of international collaboration.

Yet this is not an alliance in the Western sense. India remains fiercely protective of its strategic autonomy. Unlike Japan or Australia, it is not bound by a mutual defence treaty with the U.S. Instead, it prefers the language of strategic convergence.

That nuance matters. India still buys significant weaponry from Russia, including the S-400 missile system, to Washington’s discomfort. Yet, paradoxically, it is India’s very independence that makes it valuable to the United States. In an age of brittle alliances, a self-reliant democracy with global ambitions is a partner worth cultivating.

With the rise of authoritarian assertiveness from Moscow to Beijing, India and the U.S. themselves as custodians of a threatened liberal order. Their ‘zero tolerance’ for terrorism, echoed in joint statements since 2017, is both a counter-terror agenda and a broader ideological plank that open societies must be capable of defending themselves.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Indo-Pacific. China’s navy outnumbers India’s by three to one; its shipyards churn out destroyers faster than India can commission them. Yet geography grants India an advantage: control over the chokepoints of the Indian Ocean, from the Malacca Strait to the Andaman Sea.

The U.S., overstretched in multiple theatres, recognises this advantage. Joint naval exercises such as Malabar, conducted with Japan and Australia under the Quad, have become the visible manifestation of a loose maritime coalition. The new pact institutionalises such collaboration, extending it to domains like cyber warfare, space defence, and logistics management.

The ten-year pact thus represents both continuity and change. Continuity, because it builds upon a steady two-decade trend of India-U.S. rapprochement. Change, because it signals a willingness on both sides to plan strategically over the long term, rather than through episodic cooperation.

If the Cold War was defined by fixed alliances, the 21st century’s security architecture will likely be shaped by overlapping partnerships forged by shared interests. In that sense, the India-U.S. defence accord is less a treaty and more a template that other middle powers may emulate as they navigate an uncertain, multipolar world.

(The author is a researcher and expert in foreign affairs. Views personal.)