Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday unveiled RAKSHA, a comprehensive defence diplomacy document outlining India’s strategic roadmap and long-term vision for global defence partnerships over the next decade.
Released in New Delhi on September 3, the document seeks to provide a structured and actionable framework for India’s evolving defence diplomacy, aligning national security objectives with proactive international engagement and deeper cooperation with partner countries.
The RAKSHA framework marks an important shift towards a more proactive, partnership-driven approach to strategic engagement, with emphasis on long-term stability, mutual growth and strengthening India’s role in shaping the emerging global security architecture.
The document identifies four key pillars underpinning India’s defence diplomacy strategy:
Strategic Partnerships: India will seek to deepen bilateral and multilateral security cooperation with partner nations, strengthening institutional mechanisms and strategic convergence across the defence domain.
Capacity Building: Greater emphasis will be placed on joint military exercises, training programmes, professional exchanges and the sharing of operational best practices with friendly countries. The approach is aimed at enhancing interoperability while strengthening the defence capabilities of partner nations.
Indigenous Defence Exports: The roadmap places a strong focus on promoting Make in India defence platforms and systems in international markets. The initiative seeks to position India as a reliable and competitive global defence manufacturing hub while expanding defence-industrial partnerships.
Maritime Security: The document underlines India’s expanding role as a Net Security Provider and First Responder in the Indian Ocean Region, with greater emphasis on maritime security cooperation, regional capacity building and a free, open and rules-based maritime order.
The framework comes as India seeks to expand the role of defence diplomacy as an important instrument of its wider foreign and security policy. With an increasingly complex global security environment, New Delhi has been pursuing stronger defence partnerships, military-to-military engagement and defence-industrial cooperation with countries across regions.
The RAKSHA document provides a 10-year strategic horizon for these efforts, envisaging India as an anchor of peace and stability while strengthening partnerships based on mutual trust, shared interests and respect for a rules-based international order.
The release also highlights the increasing convergence between national security, defence production and external engagement, with indigenous defence manufacturing and exports emerging as important components of India’s broader strategic outreach.
Chief of the Army Staff General Dhiraj Seth, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh, Secretary (Defence Production) Sanjeev Kumar, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs Rudrendra Tandon, Vice Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff Vice Admiral Ajay Kochhar, Chief of Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee Air Marshal Tejinder Singh, along with senior officials from the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of External Affairs and National Security Council Secretariat, were present at the release.
The unveiling of RAKSHA signals India’s intent to make defence diplomacy a more structured, forward-looking and capability-oriented component of its strategic engagement, with the next decade expected to see deeper security partnerships, expanded military co-operation, greater defence exports and a stronger Indian role in the regional and global security landscape.
