"India–Australia defence cooperation has moved from symbolism to operational interoperability." Examine this with reference to recent bilateral exercises and institutional mechanisms.

India and Australia upgraded their ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) in June 2020 [4]. Defence cooperation has since moved from goodwill visits to annual field training backed by binding agreements. The shift towards interoperability is real but not yet complete.

Exercises: evidence of operational depth

• AUSTRAHIND, the Army-to-Army exercise, has been held every year since 2022, alternating between the two countries [3].
• The 2026 edition at Thiruvananthapuram brings together about 120 troops from each side. They rehearse sub-conventional operations in island and coastal terrain under a UN Chapter VII mandate, plus surveillance, HADR, and aerial and maritime tasks [1].
• Other services are joining: 14 IAF personnel were part of the 2024 contingent [2].
• New Zealand sent an observer delegation for the first time in 2026, hinting at a wider regional platform [1].

Institutional mechanisms

• The Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement (MLSA, 2020) lets each side refuel and resupply at the other's facilities [4].
• The 2020 Joint Declaration on maritime cooperation committed both sides to closer navy-to-navy ties and maritime domain awareness (MDA) [5].
• The 2nd Defence Ministers' Dialogue (June 2026) agreed on joint MDA work using maritime patrol aircraft and on exploring undersea domain awareness [6].

Where symbolism persists

• Limited joint working: the exercise is led by a land force at company level, and air and sea appear only as training "dimensions" [1].
• Little continuity: both the lead regiment and the terrain change every year, from Gorkha Rifles in semi-desert Perth (2025) [3] to Garhwal Rifles on the Kerala coast (2026) [1]. Each edition restarts from scratch.
• Separate surveillance systems: the exercise's reconnaissance phase is not visibly linked to India's Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) in Gurugram (2018) [7].

The exercises supply the practice and the agreements supply the legal and logistic base, so the shift is genuine but incomplete. The way forward is to keep the island theme for several editions with harder tasks each year. Future editions should also add ships, aircraft and an IFC-IOR feed, which the MLSA makes practical. This would turn the CSP into real joint capability for a free, open and secure Indo-Pacific.