ASEAN–India Maritime Security Cooperation: Strategic Lessons from Singapore and Vietnam

Vice Admiral Pradeep Chauhan, AVSM & Bar, VSM (Retd), Director-General of the National Maritime Foundation, delivered a lecture titled “ASEAN–India Maritime Security Cooperation: The Case of Singapore and Vietnam”. The event was organised by the ASEAN-India Centre at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, New Delhi.

The lecture explored the growing centrality of maritime security within ASEAN–India engagement in the Indo-Pacific. It highlighted the increasing strategic convergence between India’s MAHASAGAR vision, the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), and ASEAN’s Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP). Together, these frameworks reinforce a shared commitment to stability, connectivity, and cooperative security across the maritime domain.

Focusing on Singapore and Vietnam as key pillars of India’s Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships in Southeast Asia, the discussion traced the evolution of operational depth, defence diplomacy, and institutional collaboration. Particular emphasis was placed on expanding maritime domain awareness, naval exercises, capacity-building initiatives, and defence-industrial cooperation.

The lecture underscored that sustained engagement with Singapore and Vietnam strengthens ASEAN centrality while reinforcing a free, open, inclusive, and rules-based maritime order anchored in UNCLOS. As geopolitical competition intensifies in the Indo-Pacific, ASEAN–India maritime cooperation remains a stabilising force grounded in mutual trust, shared interests, and strategic foresight.