Navigating Regional Militarisation: India’s Strategic Interests in the Arab World

Abstract

The Arab world has witnessed a significant expansion of military capabilities, defence expenditure, arms procurement, and defence-industrial localisation amongst the changing regional threat perceptions, geopolitical rivalries, technological transformations, and uncertainty surrounding the security guarantees by conventional security providers. In this context, this paper examines the growing militarisation of the Arab world and its implications for the emerging security dynamics of the West Asian region. The paper analyses this through five case studies of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman. The current study addresses two major questions: (1) How are growing militarisation and defence-industrial modernisation in the Arab world reshaping regional security dynamics and its implications for India’s strategic interests in the region? (2) To what extent do indigenous defence manufacturing initiatives, regional rivalries, and changing threat perceptions contribute to regional security competition and strategic realignments? This paper adopts a qualitative, descriptive, and analytical methodology, employing a comparative case study approach to examine military modernisation, procurement patterns, defence-industrial development, and strategic behaviour across the five selected Arab states. The paper further explores how evolving military capabilities, including missile defence, UAVs, advanced airpower and naval systems, interact with regional competition and defence-industrial localisation. Furthermore, the paper analyses India’s expanding engagement with the Arab world through the interconnected domains of energy security, maritime security, trade, connectivity, diaspora interests, defence cooperation, and defence-industrial partnerships, while situating these relationships within India’s broader pursuit of strategic autonomy.