The Indian Military’s Brahmos missile system takes half Rehearsal in full swing forward of the Republic Day Parade 2025, at Kartavya Path on January 20, 2025 in New Delhi, India.
Raj Okay Raj | Hindustan Instances | Getty Pictures
India will provide its BrahMos and Astra missiles to Indonesia, the nation’s third such settlement within the Indo-Pacific, underscoring New Delhi’s rise as a protection provider within the area amid rising considerations over China’s assertiveness.
BrahMos, which is a supersonic cruise missile with an anti-ship functionality, has garnered sturdy curiosity from consumers within the Indo-Pacific area as these nations with restricted naval forces have to defend disputed territories within the South China Sea, specialists instructed CNBC.
“BrahMos and the air-to-air missiles are the areas which can be new in our collaboration [with Indonesia],” an Indian international ministry spokesperson mentioned on Tuesday, including that BrahMos was an necessary space of collaboration and business phrases had been but be determined between the 2 sides.
Consumers are significantly within the anti-ship model of BrahMos, which has a spread of 300 kilometers and an especially excessive pace that makes it tough to intercept, Siemon Wezeman, senior researcher within the Arms Transfers Programme on the Stockholm Worldwide Peace Analysis Institute, instructed CNBC.
It’s “one of many largest and quickest out there available on the market simply now,” he added. BrahMos Aerospace is a three way partnership between India’s Defence Analysis and Improvement Organisation and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia.
The one different missile much like BrahMos is China’s YJ-12, Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow for army aerospace on the Worldwide Institute for Strategic Research, instructed CNBC in an e-mail.
BrahMos in Indo-Pacific
Philippines was the primary purchaser of BrahMos in 2022. In Could this yr, India’s protection secretary mentioned the nation had signed a deal to promote the missile to Vietnam, Reuters reported. India’s Ministry of Defence and BrahMos Aerospace didn’t reply to CNBC’s requests for remark.
Each these offers are motivated by “the notion of China’s rising menace within the South China Sea,” Collin Koh, a senior fellow on the Institute of Defence and Strategic Research, instructed CNBC.
Whereas Indonesia doesn’t see China as a major safety menace, it does have variations with Beijing over the “North Natuna Sea declare,” Koh added.
On Monday, the Chinese language navy test-fired a ballistic missile into the Pacific, a transfer anticipated to push nations within the area to deepen protection ties with each other amid China’s rising army may.
That makes room for India to develop its protection exports within the area, specialists mentioned, as it’s seen as a transactional supplier, not aligned to any nice energy facilities, and isn’t seen as a safety menace within the area.
The strengthening of protection partnerships amongst nations within the Indo-Pacific is a part of the efforts to cope with the “China menace,” Farwa Aamer, director of South Asia initiatives at Asia Society Coverage Institute, instructed CNBC.
She added that these nations additionally need to type protection ties which can be “much less reliant” on the U.S., all of which makes India a viable protection accomplice and the “BrahMos missile system profitable.”
However whereas the BrahMos offers are serving to India collect regional companions in opposition to China, specialists mentioned it hardly strikes the needle for New Delhi’s ambition of changing into a big protection exporter.
Nascent protection exports
The sale of BrahMos is a “very sturdy seen proof that India has made it on this planet of arms producers and exporters,” Wezeman from SIPRI mentioned, however added India’s protection exports have had restricted success with regards to main contracts.
Orders for Indian fighter jet Tejas or frigates can be “price much more than a number of BrahMos orders,” he added.
Whereas exports have grown over the past 10 years, they had been price simply 384 billion rupees ($4 billion) within the monetary yr ended March 2026. That is a bit over 1% of the entire arms gross sales of $331 billion by the U.S., the world’s largest provider of arms.
India shouldn’t be among the many world’s high 25 arms exporters, based on SIPRI’s 2021–2025 main arms switch knowledge, that features China at fifth place and South Korea at ninth.
New Delhi, nevertheless, is the fifth largest army spender on this planet and the second largest importer of arms with greater than 8% of the share, as per SIPRI’s 2026 yearbook.
