Vietnam’s interest in acquiring India’s BrahMos missile has the potential to transform a routine arms deal into a high-stakes procurement impacting power, deterrence and strategic influence across the Indo-Pacific.

This month, multiple media outlets reported that Vietnam is moving closer to acquiring India’s BrahMos supersonic cruise missile as the two countries deepen defense ties amid rising tensions in the South China Sea and broader Indo-Pacific competition with China.

Discussions accelerated during Vietnamese President To Lam’s visit to India this month, where he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, with officials from both sides confirming talks on the Indo-Russian-developed missile system.

The proposed BrahMos deal, estimated at between US$629 million and $700 million and potentially including training and logistical support, would make Vietnam the third foreign buyer after the Philippines and Indonesia.

Indian officials said no final agreement has yet been signed, though India’s foreign ministry acknowledged BrahMos was among the “platforms” under discussion.

Vietnam is seeking the missile to strengthen coastal and maritime deterrence alongside its existing Russian-made Bastion-P systems, while India likely sees the sale as part of its “Act East” strategy and push to expand defense exports.

Negotiations also include Indian-built offshore patrol vessels, patrol boats, submarine batteries, ship upgrades and maintenance support for Vietnam’s Su-30 fighters and Kilo-class submarines, underscoring an expanding strategic partnership.

In a potential high-low missile force mix, the BrahMos could serve as Vietnam’s high-end missile, replacing older Soviet- and Russian-origin shore-based anti-ship missile systems while complementing the domestically produced VSM-01A Truong Son missile at the lower end.

The BrahMos’s 290-kilometer range, supersonic speed and 200-kilogram warhead allow it to attack large warships such as destroyers and amphibious assault ships, while the VSM-01A, with its shorter 80-kilometer range, high subsonic flight, and smaller warhead, may be suited for attacking smaller warships such as frigates and corvettes.

These missile systems could provide a layered anti-ship defense in the Gulf of Tonkin when based in northern Vietnam, threatening Chinese warships sailing out from Hainan.

Furthermore, Vietnam could integrate these missile systems into its broader anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy, which is characterized as a layered asymmetric approach to counter China’s superior naval power.

The BrahMos and VSM-01A missiles, Kilo-class submarines, Su-30 fighter jets and incremental island-building serve to entrench Vietnam’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, while increasing the costs of coercion against it.

However, Vietnam’s purchase of missiles from India could have even deeper strategic implications. Vietnam remains Russia’s strategic partner in Southeast Asia, but the former has been quietly diversifying its sources of defense materiel.

Western sanctions on Russian defense exports, heavy losses of Russian equipment in Ukraine and Russia’s need to replace these losses most likely influenced Vietnam’s decision to engage with alternative defense partners.

The sale of high-end military equipment, such as BrahMos, reinforces Vietnam’s defense partnership with India. Vietnam will most likely depend on India for spares, maintenance, software updates and training to operate its BrahMos systems, with the missiles becoming a focal point for longer-term cooperation between the two sides.

Notably, both Vietnam and India share a non-aligned foreign policy emphasizing their strategic autonomy while avoiding formal alliances with any great power.

For Russia, India may be serving as a broker to facilitate its arms sales. While buying arms directly from Russia could be politically sensitive, given Western sanctions associated with the Ukraine war, Russia’s 49.5% stake in BrahMos Aerospace – the company that makes the BrahMos missiles – keeps its arms exports afloat and a viable source of revenue.

As for India, the sale of BrahMos to Southeast Asian partners indicates a strong push for defense diplomacy in the region. These missiles create a direct strategic linkage between Southeast Asian security and India’s regional interests.

By enabling Southeast Asian states to implement their respective A2/AD strategies, India complicates China’s efforts to project power in the Indian Ocean.

China’s power projection efforts in the Indian Ocean are a multi-layered endeavor integrated in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), comprising dual-use fields such as port infrastructure, maritime scientific research and economic ties. While the BRI is presented as having an economic rationale, it also provides China with latent strategic options in times of crisis.

One of China’s critical interests in the Indian Ocean region is securing its sea lanes of communication (SLOCs), through which 80% of its oil shipments from the Middle East pass.

The March 2026 US sinking of the Iranian frigate Dena may also have underscored the vulnerability of maritime trade and naval operations in the Indian Ocean, reinforcing Chinese concerns that its sea lanes of communication (SLOCs) could be disrupted during a major regional conflict involving India, the US or Taiwan.

China’s military foothold in Djibouti, alongside its port investments in Gwadar in Pakistan and Hambantota in Sri Lanka, provides it with potential logistics hubs for sustaining naval operations during crises.

Its undersea scientific research endeavors may also include seafloor mapping and hydrographic activities to enable submarine operations in the region – possibly threatening India’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) operating in the Bay of Bengal.

Its expanding maritime footprint in the Indian Ocean threatens India with strategic encirclement, combined with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir and border disputes in the Himalayas.

From India’s perspective, BrahMos exports to Southeast Asian states may form part of an emerging “Necklace of Diamonds” strategy aimed at countering China’s growing strategic presence along India’s maritime periphery.

Similar to China’s BRI, India is attempting to build diplomatic, economic and defense ties with countries in China’s periphery, with Southeast Asia serving as its maritime front and Central Asia as its continental front.  

If finalized, Vietnam’s BrahMos acquisition may mark the emergence of a looser but increasingly coordinated Indo-Pacific security network in which non-aligned middle powers cooperate to raise the costs of Chinese coercion without entering formal alliances.