By Dr Gurpreet S. Khurana*
IN mid-September 2015, Australia and India held their first-ever bilateral naval exercise, AUSINDEX-2015. The week-long exercise was held in the Bay of Bengal, and involved five warships, an Australian submarine and two long-range anti-submarine aircraft (Australian P3C and Indian P8I). A “pronounced emphasis” of the exercise was on anti-submarine warfare (ASW). Beyond merely being ‘just another combined exercise’, it bears a far-reaching import, and highlights Australia’s national-strategic reorientation in recent years.
