India-Australia Defence Partnership: Major Drivers and Elements
The India-Australia relationship has seen meteoric growth since the turn of the century, with defence and security cooperation increasing, in concert with stronger ties in other areas. Their converging security interests — due to the rise of the Indo-Pacific as a strategic construct, shared concerns in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), and a shared threat perception with respect to China — have led to numerous domains in which India and Australia cooperate.
India and Australia have had frosty relations for the most part since their diplomatic relationship began in the 1940s. However, the early 2000s saw vigour in defence cooperation engagements. In 2006, the two countries signed a defence framework agreement (‘Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Cooperation’), laying down key elements of defence cooperation, including terrorism, information sharing, and extradition. Then, in 2009, the India-Australia Joint Declaration on Security was signed, adding new areas of cooperation and committing to strengthen others amidst an overall upgrade of their relationship to a “Strategic” one. In 2014, the ‘Framework for Security Cooperation’ was signed, declaring “converging political, economic and strategic interests” between the two countries, with their main bilateral exercise — AUSINDEX — beginning in 2015, with others taking shape.
Today, with the ‘Indo-Pacific’ geopolitical construct achieving primacy in strategic imaginations, the larger view behind the India-Australia relationship has become about building effective regional partnerships. The relationship converges around China's threat to the Indo-Pacific regional order amid rising Chinese economic, political, diplomatic, and military influence. India’s threat perception concerning China has grown since heightened tensions at the Line of Actual Control, which has led to strains in India-China relations since the border issue significantly impinges on India’s perceptions of China. Strained relations with China and has also brought into focus India’s economic dependence on China, and efforts to pursue some form of diversification of trade baskets. This has resulted in pursuing free trade agreements with several alternative markets, including between India and Australia, through the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement.
Another factor that has brought India and Australia together is shared concerns in the IOR. Australia seeks to secure the IOR as it is crucial to the maritime trade and sea lines of communications, upon which it depends. This is reflected in the Foreign Policy White Paper 2017, stating, “[v]alue chains drive the shipping of millions of containers annually through the straits of Malacca, Sunda and Lombok a few hundred kilometres north of Australia.” In 2016-17, 42% of Australia’s exports by value were from Western Australia (the state that faces the Indian Ocean). These exports are the raw materials and manufacturing inputs Australia ships to Asia and elsewhere, and this continued economic income requires regional stability.
The shift of Australia’s concern from supporting US military action and the Global War on Terror to its immediate surroundings was clearly outlined in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review ('DSR'). It emphasises that Australia is a “significant Indian Ocean state with the longest Indian Ocean coastline,” and it has by far the largest area of maritime jurisdiction. The DSR also recognises that Australia cannot defend itself against higher threat levels. So, its alliance with the United States and other key partners is still central to Australia’s defence strategy, and the DSR mentions India and Japan specifically, in addition to the US.
In 2020, Prime Ministers Morrison and Modi took the bilateral relationship to newer heights. The 2020 joint statement underscores the convergence of India and Australia’s regional strategic visions. For instance, both share “common concerns” regarding the strategic, security, and environmental challenges in the Indo-Pacific. That translates to a commitment to increase navy-to-navy cooperation, and enhancing civil maritime cooperation between law enforcement agencies and coast guard cooperation. But it also means working in various other formats — regionally, multilaterally, and in multilateral arrangements “...to support a regional architecture in line with their shared values and interests”. A common area of cooperation is the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), translating to commitments to strengthening institutional relationships with organisations like the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as an element of their bilateral cooperation.
Among several other agreements, the Morrison-Modi meeting led to two defence agreements and an overall upgrade of their bilateral relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. One agreement focused on logistics interoperability, and the other concerned defence science and technology research. The Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA) allows complex military engagement and greater combined responsiveness to issues like regional humanitarian disasters. The MLSA has allowed closer cooperation, for instance, by enabling a stronger maritime surveillance network in the IOR. The science and technology implementing arrangement facilitates improved collaboration between defence science and technology research organisations, allowing a framework for Indian and Australian organisations to also co-develop defence capabilities.
Since 2021, India and Australia have expanded policy dialogues to foreign and defence “2+2” Ministerial meetings. The 2021 ministerial dialogue committed to enhancing the scope and complexity of their military exercises, and engagement activities in the defence sector. The most recent defence policy dialogue indicates their intention to build partnerships in the co-development and co-production of defence equipment, exploring the Indian defence industry as a potential site for the Australian Armed Forces in its shipbuilding and maintenance plans.
The India-Australia relationship was long considered underdeveloped, but socio-cultural links, a deeper economic relationship, and convergent interests in the Indo-Pacific have led to closer defence and security arrangements. Their bilateral partnership and interactions through the Quad aim to build advanced and interoperable defence forces which can respond effectively across domains. Since India is a significant security guarantor in the IOR — and has close historical, economic and social links with Australia — a deeper defence relationship is ideal and translates to a burden-sharing approach in the region. As a result, Indian and Australian security postures have converged, translating to stronger bilateral defence and security cooperation, and in minilateral formats like the Australia-India-Japan trilateral and the Quad, comprising other partners like Japan and the United States.
