In the sprint to deepen Australia-India defence cooperation, navy links have shot ahead of ties between the two countries’ air forces and armies. That’s largely a good thing: maritime security is at the heart of both countries’ interests. But too much imbalance will limit the relationship’s full potential.
Canberra and New Delhi made much progress in their defence relationship over the past 15 years. Much was made possible by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and successive Australian prime ministers. Their top-down direction helped spur bureaucracies on either side to transcend long-held habits and assumptions that precluded them from seeing each other’s full value.
However, the sheer pace of progress also meant parts of the relationship sprinted ahead in complexity and maturity, leaving others behind. This likely reflected pragmatism: defence organisations on both sides implemented ideas that were achievable and whose logic was well understood across governments. Maritime security cooperation, requiring a strong naval focus, was one of them.
It’s now time for both sides to take stock. Defence cooperation shouldn’t happen in siloes. The Indian army is more than just a counterpart to the Australian army. It is also the largest and most influential of India’s three services. Canberra is more likely to achieve its defence ambitions—even those relating to maritime security—if its objectives are well-socialised in the Indian army. Likewise, the Indian air force plays a greater maritime security role than is sometimes acknowledged in Australia.
More importantly, militaries perform best when their individual services work with and through each other to produce joint effects. The Australian Defence Force’s strong culture of joint operations—rather than functioning in single service siloes—is partly why it produces strong outcomes relative to its modest size. The value of adopting joint approaches to military affairs is partly why India is implementing historic defence reforms, including proposed tri-service commands.
Australia and India should build on the progress they have made so far and foster a balanced, cohesive approach to cooperate across all services and domains. They can start with four steps, as we identified in recent analysis for the Australia India Institute.
First, they should establish a regular bilateral air force exercise. Both air forces have already participated in each other’s multilateral exercises, which is a pragmatic start given the busyness of both air forces. But they can do more. Air force exercises don’t always require in-demand assets, such as fighter jets, to be fruitful.
For example, the two countries have strong interests in airfield defence. It is an important capability for Australia, which is improving its ability to operate from dispersed airfields, and for India, which must be capable of defending facilities far from New Delhi, such as those on Andaman and Nicobar Island.
The two air forces can also share useful lessons on how to integrate ground and air assets in support of military operations. This is occurring right now on India’s disputed land borders, and Australia accrued deep expertise on this in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Second, India could better balance its defence representation at its High Commission in Canberra by augmenting its defence adviser—a position exclusively filled by Indian Navy officers—with deputies from the air force and army. This is important because military officers, regardless of their inter-service experience, will tend to recognise opportunities for collaboration with their own service quicker than they will for others.
As an interim step, Indian air force and army officers who come to study at the Australian staff college could stay on after graduation as short term secondees at the Indian High Commission. They could drive new initiatives, armed with their experience of Australia’s defence system.
Third, Australia and India would benefit from broadening their view of existing military exercises from service-focused to domain-focused activities. For example, army Exercise Austrahind would be recast as the two countries’ premier combined land-domain exercise, not just an army activity. This would encourage planners to incorporate navy and air force elements, as well as space and cyber dimensions, as appropriate. Ultimately, land, air and maritime domain exercises could culminate in a regular tri-service exercise.
And fourth, both sides should create a forum to coherently determine what joint capabilities they seek to build across all services and domains. This might require the establishment of joint staff talks (on top of existing talks between their respective army, navy and air force headquarters). The forum could alternatively be included as a discrete pillar under the two countries’ regular defence policy talks, which typically address higher level policy matters.
If developments in the United States underscore anything, it’s that Australia must deepen its defence relationships in the region to help secure it. India is key to this effort. The two countries should be working to transform their discrete collection of valuable defence activities into a truly integrated defence partnership.
