India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh lands in Australia on Thursday for what both governments are billing as a landmark two-day visit. Indian media has flagged three defence agreements will be signed – on intelligence sharing, maritime security, and a framework for joint military activities – designed to embed habits of cooperation rather than one-off symbolism. If this package is delivered, the true test is simple: what changes at sea.
The visit takes place against a backdrop of intensifying strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. China’s expanding naval presence, new contestation in grey zones, and a surge of minilateral initiatives such as the Quad are reshaping the landscape. Southeast Asian states, meanwhile, are asserting greater agency and looking for practical security contributions that do not force stark alignments. For both Canberra and New Delhi, moving from symbolic alignment to operational coordination is not just about their bilateral relationship – it is about ensuring the regional balance does not tip by default.
Why now? The two sides have spent five years laying the tracks. In June 2020, India and Australia signed a Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement (MLSA), enabling refuelling, repair and deeper R&D ties across each other’s facilities. Last year brought a milestone air-to-air refuelling arrangement – exactly the sort of logistical plumbing that makes combined operations practical. And this month the armed forces kick off the fourth AUSTRAHIND urban-warfare exercise in Perth. The choreography is familiar: what’s new is the chance to turn it into a maritime-first operating model that anchors their strategic alignment.
Closer India–Australia maritime cooperation is less about containment and more about reassurance and resilience.
The blueprint is hiding in plain sight. Successive Australia–India 2+2 ministerial dialogues have prioritised maritime information-sharing and domain awareness, including cooperation through India’s Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) and the Quad’s Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA). This visit should convert statements into systems, including practical routines, shared pictures, and interoperable mechanisms.
Three practical steps would move the needle fast.
First, create a white-shipping information link – a real-time channel for sharing non-military merchant-traffic data – between Australia’s northern approaches and the Bay of Bengal through IFC-IOR. IFC-IOR already “proactively shares information with respect to White Shipping and Vessels of Interest,” making it the natural hub.
Second, a forward-published patrol schedule for the eastern Indian Ocean (an ongoing roster of which assets are on station, when, and broadly where) to align P-8 patrols and MLSA-enabled logistics. Publishing a 90-day outlook would enhance predictability for partners and reduce miscalculation by others.
Third, a public scorecard of maritime domain awareness after each 2+2, tracking patrol coverage, actionable cues, fusion-centre staffing and cue-to-on-scene times. Results follow reporting, so report the metrics that matter at sea.
A further opportunity lies in protecting undersea critical infrastructure. More than 95% of global data flows through submarine cables, many of which cross the eastern Indian Ocean. Recent disruptions in other theatres highlight the vulnerability of these crucial underwater conduits. India and Australia can pair maritime domain awareness muscle with cable security: mapping chokepoints and landing sites, sharing anomaly alerts via IFC-IOR, working with industry to practise rapid cable-repair operations and to pre-position spare parts. Canberra is already elevating cable protection, and the Quad’s IPMDA can help regional partners plug local sensors into a wider picture. Treating cables as maritime infrastructure – not just IT – would deliver tangible public goods to Southeast Asia and harden the region against both accidents and coercion.
Crucially, none of this should sit in a bilateral bubble. India will chair the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) from late 2025–27, and Australia and India co-lead IORA’s working group on maritime safety and security. This is an ideal platform to set demand-driven, default-open MDA practices: shared reporting templates on illegal fishing, simple coast-guard hand-offs, and modest funds to help island states link local sensors to fusion hubs. That is how a Canberra–New Delhi roadmap becomes a regional stabiliser, not a closed club.
Closer India–Australia maritime cooperation is less about containment and more about reassurance and resilience – both to each other and to the region. For Canberra, it is a way to diversify partnerships beyond its alliance with Washington. For New Delhi, it is about deepening cooperation with a trusted partner without being locked into bloc politics. Together, they can help shape an Indian Ocean architecture that favours openness, shared responsibility, and regional agency.
Sceptics will point to enduring frictions: India’s continental focus, Australia’s Pacific bandwidth, tech-transfer limits, and diaspora politics. But recent progress – procedural interoperability (the refuelling arrangement), predictable exercise cycles (AUSTRAHIND, Malabar), and transparent metrics – shows these challenges can be managed. The point of the expected agreements is not novelty; it is to make data-sharing faster, presence coordinated (not just deconflicted), and industry collaboration purposeful.
Southeast Asian partners ultimately judge seriousness not by communiqués but by coverage of their sea lanes, fisheries enforcement, and crisis response. A visible uptick in India–Australia patrols and cueing would strengthen IPMDA and make it easier for ASEAN states to plug in on a demand-driven, non-exclusive basis.
If Canberra and New Delhi seize this moment, they can help shape the Indian Ocean’s strategic architecture in ways that favour openness, resilience, and regional agency, rather than letting others set the terms by default. That – not the photo ops – would be the legacy of this visit.
