The latest ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) sequence in Kuala Lumpur reaffirmed the grouping’s growing importance as a stabilising mechanism in a region increasingly marked by geopolitical frictions. At the multilateral level, the ADMM and ADMM-Plus engagements continued to focus on shared challenges, maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), counter-terrorism, cyber resilience, and the need for reliable crisis-communication channels to prevent miscalculation.

The platform, importantly, sustained ASEAN’s centrality in shaping defence conversations in the Indo-Pacific, ensuring that no single power, whether the United States, China, or any other state, dominates the regional security narrative.

For ASEAN, ADMM-Plus remains essential not because it resolves disputes, but because it keeps dialogue open and stabilises expectations. It is one of the few regional arrangements where defence ministers from India, the United States, China, Japan, Australia, Russia, South Korea, and New Zealand sit at the same table, exchange threat assessments, and explore practical cooperation.

In an Indo-Pacific environment marked by territorial contests, incremental coercion, and growing naval deployments, the mere existence of such a mechanism provides diplomatic oxygen. This year’s meetings helped ensure that even amid strategic mistrust, military channels do not atrophy.

India’s Strategic Messaging: Act-East In Action

India’s role in the ADMM-Plus architecture was deliberate and forward-looking. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh highlighted two key themes: first, that India’s defence cooperation with ASEAN is a tangible pillar of its Act-East policy; and second, that India’s Indo-Pacific vision is inclusive, anchored in sovereignty, openness, and the rule of law. This rhetoric aligns India with the aspirations of Southeast Asian states, which prefer flexible partnerships over bloc politics and distances New Delhi from models of security alignment that risk........

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