How do joint military exercises contribute to interoperability and defence diplomacy? Illustrate with reference to Exercise Nomadic Elephant.

Joint military exercises are structured peacetime drills in which two or more armed forces train on a common syllabus. They serve a twin purpose — tactical, by making forces able to operate together, and political, by sustaining trust between states. Exercise Nomadic Elephant, the annual India-Mongolia Army exercise held alternately in the two countries [1], illustrates both.

Building interoperability

• Shared tactics and procedures: the 16th edition at the Foreign Training Node, Umroi (Meghalaya), 03-16 July 2024, paired 45 Indian personnel of the Sikkim Scouts with Mongolia's 150 Quick Reaction Force Battalion [1].
• Common command practices: validation of a Joint Command Post and a joint Intelligence and Surveillance Centre creates a shared operating language essential for coalition or UN deployments [1].
• Drill-level convergence: cordon and search, special heliborne operations and small-team insertion/extraction standardise responses across two very different armies [1].
• Technology familiarisation: recent editions incorporate drone and counter-drone employment, aligning both forces with contemporary battlefield trends [1].

Advancing defence diplomacy

• Sustained institutional access: the exercise anchors the annual Defence Joint Working Group; the Defence Secretary attended the 17th edition's closing ceremony at Ulaanbaatar in June 2025 [2].
• Reciprocity: India sent a 40-member Madras Regiment contingent to Mongolia's multilateral peacekeeping exercise Khaan Quest in 2024, making the exchange two-way [3].
• Diplomatic dividend: Mongolia publicly supports India's permanent UNSC seat and has backed Indian candidatures to over thirty international bodies [3].
• Capacity building: Mongolia used all 274 ITEC training slots in FY 2025-26, its highest-ever utilisation [3].

Its limits must be stated honestly: Mongolia is landlocked between China and Russia, bilateral trade was only USD 100.8 million in 2025, and its 2022 requests for Indian light armoured vehicles and an ammunition plant remain unfilled [3]. Nomadic Elephant is therefore best judged as low-cost, high-return relationship maintenance. Converting such goodwill into delivered projects and defence contracts would make India's extended-neighbourhood diplomacy genuinely durable.