BrahMos effect: How India is becoming Asia’s new defence supplier

When Indonesia's Defence Ministry confirmed in March 2026 that it had reached an agreement with India for the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, most coverage treated it as a diplomatic marker: a major arms deal, warmer India-Indonesia ties, and another talking point ahead of Narendra Modi's visit to Jakarta. What got less attention was what that confirmation actually represented — not the end of a sales process, but the beginning of a procurement relationship that Jakarta was already looking to expand.

Even before Prime Minister Modi landed in Indonesia on July 6, reports had emerged that Jakarta was seeking a second BrahMos battery in addition to the one contracted in March and asking New Delhi for a favourable line of credit. In fact, the Brahmos, is not alone. Indonesia has also decided to import India's Astra beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile. Two Indian missile systems in a single visit.

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The Astra Mk1 is India's first indigenous beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, developed by DRDO's Defence Research and Development Laboratory and produced by Bharat Dynamics Limited. With a stated range of up to 110 km in head-on engagements, it is integrated with the Su-30MKI and the Tejas. During Operation Sindoor in May 2025, IAF Su-30MKIs armed with live Astra Mk1 missiles flew combat air patrol missions along the western border — the missile's first confirmed operational deployment in a real-world combat scenario.

That operational validation is what Indonesia's procurement decision is built on. And to understand why that matters to Jakarta, you have to look at what the rest of those 88 hours looked like.

During Operation Sindoor, the Indian Air Force used BrahMos cruise missiles — alongside SCALP-EG and Rampage missiles fired from Rafales, Su-30MKIs and Jaguars — to strike 11 Pakistani airbases between May 8 and 10. The targets ran across Pakistan's operational depth: Nur Khan near Islamabad, Murid Air Base, Sargodha, Bholari, Rahim Yar Khan, Rafiqi, Jacobabad and others. A Pakistan Air Force command-and-control centre was destroyed. At Bholari, four BrahMos missiles reportedly struck a hangar housing a Swedish-origin AEW&C aircraft valued at roughly $300 million. At Sargodha, runway intersections were hit and the base rendered inoperative. By noon on May 10, Pakistan's Air Force had lost the ability to sustain operations and pleaded for a ceasefire on the DGMO hotline.

In January 2026, the Swiss think tank Centre d'Histoire et de Prospective Militaires published a detailed independent assessment concluding that India had achieved clear air superiority, conducted "a series of spectacular strikes against Pakistan's principal air force stations," and forced Islamabad to seek terms. This was not Indian government output. It was a military research institute working from operational data.

Every defence ministry in the world read that assessment. Every procurement officer in Southeast Asia ran the same calculation: a missile that flies at Mach 3, carries a 200-300 kg warhead, reaches 290 kilometres and sea-skims in its terminal phase — and a beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile deployed in combat conditions for the first time — are not theoretical capabilities. They have operational records now. That changes what buyers are willing to pay and what they are willing to trust.

For countries in Southeast Asia watching Chinese maritime and air activity expand around them, that combat validation lands differently than any specification sheet. The Philippines has spent years facing Chinese pressure near Scarborough Shoal and the Second Thomas Shoal. Vietnam remains in active disputes over the Paracels and Spratlys. Both Manila and Hanoi moved to acquire BrahMos within that context. Indonesia's situation is distinct, but only up to a point.

Jakarta is not a formal claimant in the South China Sea territorial disputes. Even so, Chinese fishing vessels, coast guard ships and naval assets have repeatedly entered waters near the Natuna Islands — Indonesian sovereign territory within its Exclusive Economic Zone. Jakarta lodged formal protests in 2020 after Chinese vessels lingered in Natuna waters for weeks, and lower-level incidents have continued since. Indonesia also has uniquely demanding maritime geography — a coastline stretching roughly 54,716 kilometres, the longest in Southeast Asia, sitting astride the Malacca and Sunda Straits, two of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints. Defending those straits is not a rhetorical objective. It is an operational requirement.

The Observer Research Foundation has noted that BrahMos adds "a high-speed, anti-ship layer to Indonesia's coastline defence alongside existing Exocet, P-800 Oniks/Yakhont and Chinese missiles". That last detail is worth pausing on. Indonesia already operates Chinese-supplied missile systems. Choosing to supplement that inventory with Indian platforms — in an environment where Chinese maritime pressure near Indonesian waters is a live concern — is not an incidental procurement decision. And adding an Indian air-to-air missile alongside the BrahMos makes the shift even harder to read as anything other than deliberate.

For India, the parallel story is just as important. BrahMos Aerospace is no longer simply a domestic defence success. It is becoming a serious export enterprise. The Philippines was the first breakthrough customer, its $375 million contract signed in 2022, with the second battery shipped by sea in April 2025 — demonstrating that India could handle export logistics at scale. Vietnam followed. Indonesia signed in March 2026. By July, Jakarta was back for more BrahMos and adding Astra to the shopping list.

India's defence exports reached Rs 21,083 crore in 2023-24, a figure that would have seemed implausible a decade ago when the country was the world's largest arms importer. BrahMos is the most visible symbol of that shift. The Astra is the next one. Both are now combat-deployed, both are generating export demand, and both were asked for by the same customer in the same week.

The broader significance extends well beyond commerce. India selling advanced strike systems and air-to-air missiles to ASEAN nations facing Chinese pressure is a structural contribution to regional deterrence. A BrahMos battery in Indonesia raises the cost of Chinese surface operations near the Natuna Islands. An Astra-equipped Indonesian Air Force raises the cost of aerial coercion. Neither weapon needs to be fired to do that work. Presence, credibility and a combat record do the job before the conflict begins.

Indonesia wanted one BrahMos battery. Then it wanted another. Then it decided it also wanted Astra. The Philippines bought one system and kept going. The pattern matters because repeat demand from multiple customers, across multiple platforms, after a live combat demonstration, is not diplomacy. It is a market forming around a trusted supplier.

India is not just selling missiles into Southeast Asia. It is building a defence relationship with a region that has concluded it needs what India now makes — and has watched, over 88 hours in May 2025, what Indian weapons look like when they are actually used.

(Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)