STRATEGIC SIGNALING THROUGH JOINT EXERCISES

India is ramping up bilateral and multilateral military exercises as it looks to enhance international military cooperation and build greater trust, argues NINAD D SHETH

- NINAD D SHETH

Over the last five years India has increased the number of format and content of bilateral and multilateral military exercises with its allies and partners. From building confidence with allies to have an ability to fight jointly using each other’s complicated equipment to sharpening tactics and testing capabilities, these exercises serve multiple purposes.

For India, some of the most important exercises are with its Quad partners and neighbors such as Nepal, Bangladesh and friends in the region such as UAE and Singapore. In military terms, joint military exercises help in improving the harmonisation, teamwork and understanding among the participating nations' armed forces.

This understanding translates in many ways in an ability to operate hardware of different origin, in smoothly coordinating tactical awareness and finding gaps in force posture among other things. The ultimate aim of any military exercise between participating nations is to explore and enhance interoprability which leads to better joint operations capabilities.

One example of this was the USIndia joint exercise held in 2022 in the high altitude of Auli in Uttarakhand. Briefing the texture, scale and purpose of the exercise Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh explained how the goal of sharing best practices, tactics, techniques and procedures was undertaken.