India, US hold talks on Indo-Pacific security challenges
Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh met Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Samuel J Paparo in Singapore on Friday and held wide-ranging talks on security challenges in the region.
Singh’s talks with Paparo —on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue 2026 — focused on “strengthening military-to-military cooperation and addressing emerging security challenges” in the Indo-Pacific region, the Directorate of Public Relations under India’s Ministry of Defence said in a social media post.
The meeting reaffirmed the “shared commitment” to deepening India-US defence ties at a time when the Indo-Pacific has emerged as the central theatre of global strategic competition, it said.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that 60 per cent of global maritime trade passes through the Indo-Pacific, underscoring the region’s critical importance for Washington.
For India, the Indo-Pacific forms the core of its security calculus. The Indian Ocean flanks it on three sides — the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian Ocean proper to the south, and the Bay of Bengal to the east. And it has growing strategic interests stretching from the Strait of Malacca to the Persian Gulf.
The development comes days after India hosted the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi, where External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, along with his counterparts from the US, Australia and Japan, announced the grouping’s first-ever joint infrastructure project — a port in Fiji.
The Quad also launched an Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Cooperation Initiative, aimed at establishing a Common Operating Picture and sharing near-real-time data across strategic shipping lanes.
On the sidelines of the Singapore summit, Singh also held separate meetings with Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, who heads the NATO Military Committee, Canada’s Senior Associate Deputy Minister of National Defence Kelvin Brosseau, and Seychelles’ Chief of Defence Forces Major General Micheal Rosette. Defence collaborations and security challenges were some of the common themes of these meetings, according to the Ministry of Defence. Singh also addressed a gathering of leading think tanks and academia, where he shared India’s vision for regional security and strategic engagement.
The flurry of engagements comes in the context of a broader visit to Singapore that has seen Singh undertake a packed schedule of defence diplomacy.
On Thursday, Singh co-chaired the 16th Defence Policy Dialogue with Permanent Secretary (Defence) of Singapore Joseph Leong, reaffirming the robust bilateral defence partnership between the two nations.
