Evaluate the role of bilateral naval exercises in India's security diplomacy.

Security diplomacy uses military instruments for political ends. Bilateral naval exercises — exemplified by VARUNA with France, held since 1993 and named in 2001 [2] — are among its most visible tools: valuable as enablers of trust and interoperability, but bounded in what they can guarantee.

Merits: signalling, interoperability and spillover

• Interoperability: the 24th VARUNA edition at Toulon, joined by INS Trishul, is aimed explicitly at sharing best practices and enhancing interoperability through cross-deck visits and sea-phase operations [1].
• Strategic reach and signalling: a European venue demonstrates the Navy's ability to operate along the Red Sea–Suez–Mediterranean lane that carries India's Europe-bound trade and underpins IMEC, where France is an original signatory [4].
• Naval diplomacy: harbour phases, port calls (INS Talwar at La Réunion) and sporting engagements build people-to-people confidence with a resident Indian Ocean power [1][4].
• Deepening institutional trust: India was upgraded from observer to participant in France's AsterX exercise in 2025, and the 6th Annual Defence Dialogue (Bengaluru, February 2026) renewed a 10-year defence agreement with reciprocal posting of officers [4].
• Defence-industrial spillover: operational familiarity supports acquisition — the April 2025 IGA for 26 Rafale-Marine aircraft includes a fuselage production facility and MRO shops in India [5].

Limits

• Exercises create no legal obligation; India and France have no mutual defence treaty, so interoperability is not assurance of assistance.
• They are episodic — a few days annually [3] — and cannot substitute for logistics pacts, basing access or sustained deployment.
• Reach is not presence: India holds no Mediterranean base, so distant drills risk becoming optics unless nested in political frameworks.

On balance, bilateral exercises are force-multipliers of diplomacy rather than substitutes for capability: they remove operational friction so that, if a political decision to act together is taken, navies can respond in days rather than months. Their worth is maximised when embedded in durable frameworks like Horizon 2047 and the Indo-Pacific Roadmap [4], advancing India's SAGAR–MAHASAGAR vision of cooperative maritime security.