UK defence overview acknowledges Indias position on world stage and Indian Ocean

The UK’s Strategic Defence Review 2025, unveiled late on Monday, units out the rising threats confronted by Britain, together with from China, which the report stated is “increasingly leveraging its economic, technological, and military capabilities” to ascertain dominance within the Indo-Pacific and erode US affect.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has pledged the biggest sustained enhance in defence spending for the reason that finish of the Cold War, commissioned the defence overview quickly after he was elected final July as a way to formulate a plan for the subsequent 10 years.

“Recognising the role that India plays on the global stage, the UK continues to develop the bilateral defence relationship across a range of shared interests, including in the Indian Ocean region and through capability cooperation,” the report stated in its part on the UK’s world companions.

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The announcement of the UK-India Defence Partnership in February 2025 “represents an important next step for bilateral defence cooperation, focusing on next-generation weapons in the critical area of air defence”.

Defence and safety cooperation is without doubt one of the 5 pillars of the India-UK 2030 Vision that was finalised in May 2021 and envisages the 2 international locations working collectively to strengthen efforts to sort out cyber, house, crime and terrorist threats and develop a free, open and safe Indo-Pacific. The 2030 Vision additionally envisages enhanced maritime cooperation and joint workouts, and defence business collaboration to develop new capabilities and applied sciences.

The UK’s defence overview made a passing point out of the connection with Pakistan, describing it as “historic” and “with a shared focus on security objectives”.

The defence overview acknowledged the problem posed to Britain by China, saying that it’s “increasingly leveraging its economic, technological, and military capabilities, seeking to establish dominance in the Indo-Pacific, erode US influence, and put pressure on the rules-based international order”.

China has “embarked on large-scale, extraordinarily rapid military modernisation”, together with a “vast increase in advanced platforms and weapons systems, such as space warfare capabilities”, an unprecedented diversification and progress of its typical and nuclear missile forces, with missiles that may attain the UK and Europe, and extra varieties and “greater numbers of nuclear weapons than ever before, with its arsenal expected to double to 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030”.

In the context of the Indo-Pacific area, the defence overview stated that “growing Chinese assertiveness is a key driver of regional and global instability”. China’s army workouts round Taiwan “risk dangerous escalation in the Taiwan Strait”, whereas its “aggressive actions are fuelling tension in the South China Sea”.

Chinese know-how and its proliferation to different international locations was described as a “leading challenge for the UK”, with the nation’s defence “likely to face Chinese technology wherever and with whomever it fights”.

China can be “likely to continue seeking advantage through espionage and cyber-attacks, and through securing cutting-edge Intellectual Property through legitimate and illegitimate means”, the defence overview stated.

The defence overview additionally described the rising hyperlinks between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea as an element that complicates “calculations of deterrence and escalation management across regions”.