Published Paper Details:

This paper examines India's defence diplomacy with Central Asian countries, focusing on their evolution and strategic significance. Central Asian Countries situated at the heart of Eurasia and often been the subject of power struggles among global powers due to their Geo-strategic location as it links the Asia with Europe. Apart from this, Central Asian region is also important because of its instability due to terrorism, drug traficking and extremism. Over the past decade, India has expanded its military engagement with countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan through regular joint exercises, military training programmes to focus upon counterterrorism, extremism. These exercises and programmes reflects defence cooperation between India and the Central Asian republics, particularly in the context of regional instability in Afghanistan and the evolving geopolitical dynamics of Eurasia. This study traces the development of defence diplomacy of India and Central Asia from their initial stages to current time, highlighting their objectives and diplomatic implications. Central Asian States situated at middle of Eurasia and don't hold direct geographical linkages with India, so limited in scalecompared of engagements India has with major powers, these military exercises, high level visits of defence cooperation etc serve as an important tool for security cooperation and defence diplomacy. This paper argues that India's defence diplomacy in Central Asia, though limited in scope, represent a strategically significant important tool to strengthen security ties, enhance regional stability, and reflect India's growing engagement in the Central Asian Republics.