India’s Defence Diplomacy as Soft Power Instrument Towards Southeast Asia

In the post-Cold War period, as Southeast Asia underwent significant geopolitical alignments, India forged a network of defence and security partnerships across the region, which gradually emerged as an instrument of soft power. While this approach yielded limited strategic dividends, changing regional dynamics- particularly growing salience of economic relations in shaping geopolitics- have exposed its limitations. A strategy centred on defence diplomacy, conceived in the 1990s, is increasingly misaligned with contemporary realities. If India is to emerge as a power of consequence in Southeast Asia, a region central to the Indo-Pacific, a fundamental recalibration of this approach is imperative.