India’s Role in Shaping Southeast Asia’s Emerging Security Architecture
- Mayur Kansal
- Feb 8
- 6 min read
The post-1945 liberal international order, long underpinned by American preponderance, is yielding to an era of realist calculus where the ‘might’ increasingly informs the ‘right’. The United States (US) 2025 National Security Strategy signals a shift in the way the US articulates and pursues its core interests, accepting a world where influence accrues to “larger, richer, and stronger nations” as a “timeless truth”. Reinterpreting the Monroe Doctrine, the US increasingly frames the Western Hemisphere as a core strategic priority. Concurrently, European powers, chiefly France, Germany and the United Kingdom, are consumed by the project of “Pax Europaea” in the shadow of the conflict in Ukraine and uncertain American commitments.
This comes after over a decade of shifting focus towards the Indo-Pacific, and deepening strategic ties with resident nations, including the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). For ASEAN nations, the retreat of the US and Europe actively incentivises and empowers an expansionist China to assert its dominance, directly threatening ASEAN's autonomy and security. Washington's transactional turn has fueled Beijing's resolve to secure its strategic periphery and economic interests through more assertive means. Last year, China conducted a record 163 operations in the South China Sea, including a record number of live-fire drills.
However, despite significant investments in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), including projects in Iran and Pakistan, China's core strategic vulnerability, the "Malacca Dilemma," remains unresolved. This persistent vulnerability drives Beijing to seek greater control over adjacent seas and territories, leading to increased militarisation in the South China Sea and pressure on ASEAN claimant states. ASEAN countries now find themselves between a resident great power with revisionist ambitions and a receding rules-based order, with anxieties around a Trump-led revival of a G2 order.
Therefore, there is room in South East Asia’s strategic calculus to consider deepening ties with another power capable of offering a substantive strategic alternative: India. India's geographic position astride the key choke points in the eastern Indian Ocean makes it not just another partner, but a key guardian of the maritime commons upon which ASEAN and Chinese economies equally depend. India, by virtue of its size, economic heft, and concurrent strategic competition with China, is no longer merely a potential balancer but is now compelled and uniquely equipped, to play a leading security role in Southeast Asia, a role essential to prevent regional dominance by a single power whose interests are antithetical to a free and open Indo‑Pacific, and to secure India’s own national interests.
ASEAN’s Security Needs
ASEAN’s consensus model, while preserving a sense of unity, has often rendered its responses to coercion ineffective, eroding its centrality. Internal rifts between claimant states seeking robust deterrence and non-claimant states wary of economic retaliation from Beijing lead to a collective security deficit. This divergence underscores a varied threat perception but a unifying need for “proactive and effective” response capacity to safeguard sovereignty.
ASEAN’s wariness of great‑power domination and its preference for regional resilience mean it seeks a credible balancing partner that would help level the playing field, enabling ASEAN states to negotiate from a position of greater strength without being drawn into either bloc. This need creates a strategic opening for India, whose commitment to strategic autonomy and a multipolar Asia aligns with ASEAN’s core tenets.
India’s Evolving Role as Regional Security Anchor
India’s growing role as a credible security provider in South East Asia is built upon the foundations of proven engagement in the region, notably as the first responder and net security provider in the Indian Ocean Region.
While defence diplomacy efforts with South East Asia have significantly widened since the Galwan clash of 2020, India’s role here as a major defence partner will also undoubtedly build on the transformation of India's defence‑industrial complex. Defence production has surged from approximately ₹46,429 crore in 2014‑15 to over ₹1,27,434 crore in FY24, with exports experiencing a significant rise. This growth is not merely quantitative. The performance of indigenous systems during recent Operation Sindoor has bolstered confidence in their operational efficacy.
This allows India to offer a tiered portfolio of security goods that match the varied needs and budgetary constraints of South East Asian partners. The offerings can be categorised into three foundational pillars:
Foundational Logistics and Sustainment: This is India’s most proven and readily exportable niche. Platforms like the Tata 6×6 LPTA military truck exemplify this strength. Valued for being “rugged & easy to maintain”, these vehicles have seen successful deployments from Thailand, which purchased over 600 units, to Morocco, where their performance in both military and humanitarian roles prompted consideration of additional acquisitions. Such assets form the essential backbone of any military, enhancing mobility and logistical resilience without triggering regional arms race anxieties.
Core Defence Hardware and Systems: India’s defence-industrial base, supported by over 430 private firms and 16,000 MSMEs, is building capabilities in critical areas: defence electronics, radars, composite materials, and marine communication technologies. In maritime security, India can offer expertise and equipment for anti‑piracy operations, coastal surveillance networks, and diesel‑electric submarines. India has offered the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile to Vietnam and the Philippines, and could consider offering coastal surveillance radar systems to partners.
Advanced Deterrence and Joint Capacity Building: This pillar involves more sophisticated systems and deep interoperability. Platforms like the Tejas fighter jet, Akash surface-to-air missile system, and Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launcher represent high-end capabilities. While challenges like the delay in Tejas Mk1A deliveries highlight the persistent hurdles in scaling complex manufacturing, they also underscore a transparent developmental journey. As Prime Minister Modi visits Malaysia, India is considering sale of Dornier aircraft and naval platforms, as well as offering Kuala Lumpur mid-life upgradation of Scorpene submarine and Su 30 aircraft.
Shifting external realities also present opportunities for strategic trilaterals in the region, most notably with Japan. With China-Japan ties strained, and Japan looking to ease its tough arms exports regulations this year, collaborative ventures with third countries and co-production of defence equipment such as naval communication systems for Southeast Asian partners can be a win-win option for all parties.
India’s strategy must be incremental, pragmatic, and deeply informed of the “ASEAN way”. It could include leveraging assets like the Dhruv helicopter for joint HADR operations; sharing satellite data, installing coastal radar chains, and conducting joint patrols against piracy and trafficking; collaborating on non‑kinetic, emerging threat areas that align with ASEAN’s comprehensive security model; and encouraging Indian private‑sector defence firms to establish joint ventures within ASEAN.
Strategic and Operational Constraints
The realisation of this strategic vision, however, must contend with a complex array of internal and external constraints. Internally, India’s defence-industrial ecosystem, though rapidly modernising, still grapples with bureaucratic inertia, gaps between design and mass production, and balancing the needs of the Indian defence forces while scaling up for export reliability. These factors can impact delivery timelines and the consistency of supply, as seen in delays for advanced platforms like the Tejas Mk1A.
Externally, the geopolitical landscape is fraught. ASEAN’s internal divisions could hinder a unified approach to security cooperation with India. A major defence agreement between India and one ASEAN nation can be viewed with apprehension or even opposition by a fellow member state, particularly when it intersects with long-standing, unresolved bilateral disputes. It would test India’s diplomatic skill to navigate intra-ASEAN politics and demand a defence industry capable of delivering tailored, reliable solutions. Furthermore, India does not operate in a vacuum; established European and American defence firms, backed by powerful commercial and political lobbies, will remain formidable competitors for ASEAN contracts.
The strategy of focusing on HADR, Maritime Domain Awareness, cybersecurity, and industrial joint ventures is designed to navigate these very constraints by demonstrating value through low-political-risk, high-utility cooperation. This patient, building-block approach addresses internal capacity gaps by creating steady demand that incentivizes efficiency in production, while externally, it positions India as a complementary partner, aligning with ASEAN’s hedging instincts.
The unfolding strategic reorientation in world politics, marked by American retrenchment and European consolidation, coupled with a global order, where power politics often trumps rules-based paradigms, raises the stakes for India’s regional security posture. The vision of an ‘Asian Century’ is untenable if it becomes a ‘Chinese Century’ characterised by unilateral dominance. For an ‘Indian Century’ to realise itself, proactive and responsible leadership in its immediate and extended neighbourhood is indispensable. By leveraging its niche in foundational logistics, core defence systems, and joint training, and by adopting a patient, ASEAN‑centric approach India is poised to become a leading and trusted security partner for Southeast Asia. This would not only uphold regional stability and multipolar balance but also solidify India’s strategic autonomy, advance its economic ambitions through defence exports, and ultimately secure a free, open, and inclusive Indo‑Pacific.
Mayur Kansal is a fourth-year BA LL.B. (Hons.) student at Panjab University, Chandigarh, specialising in legal research, drafting, and policy analysis. He has interned with the Office of Hon’ble Manish Tewari, MP, as well as the Punjab State Human Rights Commission and Information Commission, where he gained experience in legislative processes, rights-based adjudication, and administrative functioning. He was enrolled in the Closed Door Young Scholars Programme 2025-26.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s).
