India Markets BrahMos Missiles To Southeast Asia To Strengthen Defense Ties And Arms Exports
India has signed a roughly $620 million deal to sell BrahMos missiles to Vietnam, making it the third Southeast Asian nation to announce plans to buy the system, officials said in late May 2026.
India also sold the supersonic cruise missile system to the Philippines under a $375 million agreement signed in 2022, with deliveries beginning in 2024. In March 2026, Indonesia announced a deal to procure the missile system, according to The Diplomat magazine.
“This is part of our efforts to modernize our weaponry, especially in beefing up our coastal defense,” Indonesian Defense Ministry spokesman Rico Ricardo Sirait said, according to the Jakarta Globe newspaper. He said the system, which is manufactured by New Delhi-based BrahMos Aerospace and jointly developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation, would “boost deterrence capabilities in safeguarding national sovereignty.”
Malaysia and Thailand are also interested in acquiring BrahMos missiles, The Diplomat reported.
The Vietnam agreement will strengthen ties between Hanoi and New Delhi, analysts said, and enhance Vietnam’s preparedness and deterrence capabilities by modernizing its defense forces.
“Although Vietnam maintains strong economic relations with China, it has increasingly sought strategic partnerships with countries such as India and the U.S. to safeguard freedom of navigation in the South China Sea,” the Indian magazine BW Businessworld reported.
Other Southeast Asian nations have followed a similar course of action given China’s increasing aggression in the resource-rich sea, a vital global trade route.
“The capability development intent of Vietnam or any other Southeast Asian country vis-a-vis China will continue regardless of the type of relations they have with China,” Rahul K. Bhonsle, a retired Indian Army brigadier and director at New Delhi-based consultancy Security Risks Asia, told Nikkei Asia magazine.
“Fears over China’s intentions and its growing military capabilities” are spurring arms sales across the region, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported in March 2026.
The BrahMos can travel at more than 3,300 kilometers per hour, nearly three times the speed of sound, and be launched from air, land, sea and underwater platforms. In addition to providing stealth and precision-guidance capabilities, the missile can carry conventional warheads of up to 200 kilograms for a range of about 290 kilometers.
Vietnam will deploy the missiles from its Su-30 fighter jets and land-based coastal batteries, according to the India Today news magazine.
Vietnam also will procure up to four offshore patrol vessels and 14 high-speed patrol boats from India for about $300 million, Naval News reported.
