New Delhi: India conducted a number of unprecedented bilateral and multilateral military exercises with countries around the world this year, with top officers using keywords such as ‘defense diplomacy’, ‘strategic signaling’ and ‘interoperability’ easily as before .
India may stop bilateral exercises and most symbolically ‘exercise’ with China because the military confrontation erupted in East Ladakh in May last year, but it was all systems running as far as others considered by other countries.
“Exercise increases military and strategic cooperation, development of self-confidence and interoperability with various countries, in addition to hone combat skills, absorbing best practices and operational tactics,” said a senior military officer.
“Defense diplomacy is an instrument for further Indian diplomatic interest,” he added.
India, for example, has increased its outreach to Africa, where China has made a deep breakthrough, with military exercises used as one tool.
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Minister of External Affairs Jaisankar and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh held Thethen, of course, there were strategic signaling to countries such as China through exercises such as quadrilateral ‘Malabar’ among India, USA, Japan and Australia, the last edition of Guam in the Western Pacific Towards August-end.
The strategic congruence that developed to prevent coercion in Indo Pacific also came through the ‘Quad-Plus-France’ exercises called La Perrouse ‘in Bengal Bay in April.
After setting hot steps in conducting training this year, India has several more scheduled in the past four months.
Navy exercise ‘quad-plus-uk’, for example, is scheduled in Bengal Bay next month.
This will be followed by the first Tri-Service training with England, centered around 65,000 tons of HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier with fifth generation ‘lightning’ combat jets, from the west coast from October 24-27.
India has done tri-service exercises only with the US and Russia until now.
The Indian army, after just concluding bilateral ‘Indra’ exercises in Russia and ‘Kazind’ in Kazakhstan, currently have used around 200 troops for ‘Zapad’ 17 countries’ training in Nizhny in Russia.
Other upcoming exercises include ‘Solar Kiran’ with Nepal, ‘Shakti Mitra’ with Sri Lanka, ‘Ajeya Warrior’ with England, ‘Yudh Abhyas’ with the US and ‘Shakti’ with France within the September-November period.
The Navy, in turn, has conducted bilateral exercises with countries ranging from Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand to Kenya, UAE, Qatar, Brunei, Bahrain, Egypt, England, and Germany this year.
The IAF also sent Sukhoi-30MKI fighters and C-17 Globemaster-III aircraft to take part in the ‘Fert Flag’ training, which saw the participation of the Air Force from India, USA, France, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.