One Military, Many Partnerships: India’s Exercise Strategy

For decades, India was more often the guest than the host when it came to major international military exercises.

The Indian armed forces participated extensively in bilateral exercises — Cope India with the United States, Garuda with France, Indra with Russia and several others. These exercises built interoperability and strengthened individual defence relationships.

But India’s exercise diplomacy is now becoming more ambitious.

The first edition of Tarang Shakti in 2024 marked an important shift. Instead of bringing one foreign air force to train with India at a time, India brought multiple air forces together. Participants included the US, France, Germany, Australia, the UAE, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh — countries with very different strategic priorities and relationships with one another.

That makes the exercise significant beyond its operational value.

For the Indian Air Force, such exercises provide exposure to different tactics, techniques and procedures, including dissimilar air-combat training with advanced foreign platforms. But for Indian diplomacy, they demonstrate something else: India can be a convening power.

The message is particularly relevant to India’s policy of multi-alignment — engaging simultaneously with different power centres rather than placing itself firmly inside any single strategic bloc.

The pattern extends beyond the air domain. Yudh Abhyas with the US, Veer Guardian with Japan, Pitch Black with Australia and Udara Shakti with Malaysia have all expanded the operational relationships India maintains across the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

The diplomatic balancing act is becoming more complicated too.

India can host American F-35s while operating the Russian-origin S-400 system. It can deepen defence and strategic ties with Moscow while facing pressure from Washington over Russian energy imports. It can host Chinese President Xi Jinping while continuing to manage a contested military relationship with China along the LAC. And it remains simultaneously part of both BRICS and the Quad.

Military exercises, therefore, are no longer simply about training.

They are becoming a tool through which India learns, signals, builds partnerships, promotes its defence industry — and perhaps increasingly brings others into its own strategic neighbourhood.