India-US navies to scale up drills, eye new-age domains

India and the US are looking to collaborate on emerging military domains and refine the scope of their maritime exercises to make these more complex and challenging. These issues were discussed between the military leadership of both countries during Navy Chief Admiral DK Tripathi’s recent six-day visit to the US.

Collaboration on expanding military domains would include unmanned systems, surveillance, cyber and space-enabled maritime capabilities. The two sides operate several common-origin platforms such as MQ-9B drones and Boeing P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft, allowing them to share a common operational picture.

In the space domain, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US in February, the Transforming Relations Utilising Strategic Technologies (TRUST) initiative was announced to advance cooperation in space alongside defence, artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors and biotechnology.

The India-US Defence Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS-X) is aimed at fostering startup partnerships in satellite technology and space situational awareness. Defence space cooperation has also deepened with India’s participation in the US Space Command’s Global Sentinel exercise.

On military exercises, the two sides are exploring expansion. “The two sides deliberated on refining bilateral and multilateral exercises,” the Navy said after the visit concluded.

The navies are looking to add greater complexity to the drills, including “submarine hunts” and tracking “enemy vessels”, which would strengthen the India-US maritime partnership and advance shared strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific, sources said.

Both navies are part of strategic multi-nation constructs such as the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), which operates in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. India hosts the Milan exercise, in which the US is an important participant. Along with Japan and Australia, both countries are also part of the Malabar Exercise.

The latest edition of Malabar was conducted last week at Guam, a US base in the Pacific Ocean.

Admiral Tripathi and US officials reviewed key pillars of India-US defence cooperation, including strengthening maritime security and domain awareness, expanding operational interoperability, enhancing information sharing, safeguarding sea lines of communication and critical undersea infrastructure, and coordinated responses to counter-piracy and other non-traditional security challenges.

Admiral Tripathi also met Admiral Samuel J Paparo, Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Stephen T Koehler, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet, and other senior naval leaders.