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The second edition of the India-New Zealand Defence Strategic Dialogue was held in Wellington on 24 August 2026, co-chaired by Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence Amitabh Prasad and Deputy Secretary in the New Zealand Ministry of Defence Richard Schmidt.
Talks focused on maritime security, joint military training and broader defence cooperation, and on implementing the strategic targets in the India-New Zealand Strategic Partnership Roadmap 2030 agreed at the summit-level meeting the previous month.
Both sides reaffirmed a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific, reviewed options for joint exercises, cross-service personnel exchanges and defence staff college partnerships across maritime, air and land units, and agreed to sustain regular high-level and ministerial exchanges.
Announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 14th East Asia Summit in Bangkok on 4 November 2019 as India's framework for cooperative management of the maritime domain in the Indo-Pacific.
Key: Built on seven pillars - maritime security; maritime ecology; maritime resources; capacity building and resource sharing; disaster risk reduction and management; science, technology and academic cooperation; and trade connectivity and maritime transport. It is a non-treaty-based, voluntary arrangement with no new secretariat: individual countries lead individual pillars and others join voluntarily.
Endorsed at the Auckland summit on 11 July 2026 as a four-year framework to deepen cooperation across trade, agriculture, security, innovation and people-to-people ties.
Key: Its defence content includes a Maritime Cooperation Arrangement, a Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement, hydrographic cooperation, bilateral naval exercises and an annual Maritime Security Dialogue - the targets this Wellington dialogue was convened to implement.
The principal naval exercise linking India to its Indo-Pacific partners, begun in 1992 as an annual bilateral exercise between the Indian Navy and the United States Navy.
Key: Japan became a permanent participant in 2015 and Australia joined in 2020, making the exercise coterminous with the Quad's membership. New Zealand is not a Malabar participant - it is a Five Eyes member that nonetheless keeps its Indo-Pacific defence engagement outside the Quad framework, which is what makes a separate bilateral dialogue with India necessary.
The principal pan-Indian Ocean regional grouping, formally launched on 6-7 March 1997 through the Charter of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Co-operation. It is tripartite in character, bringing together government, business and academia. It has 23 member states and 12 dialogue partners.
India's maritime information-sharing hub, established by the Government of India at Gurugram on 22 December 2018 and hosted by the Indian Navy. It builds a common, coherent maritime situation picture for the Indian Ocean Region and hosts International Liaison Officers from partner nations.
The signals-intelligence sharing alliance of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It traces its origin to the UKUSA Agreement of 5 March 1946 between the United States and the United Kingdom, later extended to the other three. New Zealand's membership is the key asymmetry in the India-New Zealand defence relationship: Wellington is inside the closest intelligence arrangement in the world, and outside the Quad.
New Zealand lies in the south-western Pacific Ocean, south-east of Australia across the Tasman Sea. It consists of two main islands and about 600 smaller ones. Wellington, where this dialogue was held, is the capital and sits at the southern tip of the North Island; Auckland, on the same island, is the largest city and hosted the July 2026 summit. The Cook Strait separates the North Island from the larger, less populous South Island - about 23 km wide at its narrowest point. The Southern Alps run the length of the South Island and carry the country's highest peak, Aoraki / Mount Cook, at 3,724 m. Christchurch and Dunedin are the South Island's major cities.
New Zealand's independent foreign policy tradition - most famously its nuclear-free stance from the 1980s, which suspended parts of its ANZUS relationship with the United States - has kept it out of the Quad even though it is a Five Eyes member. India therefore builds the relationship through bilateral instruments such as this Dialogue rather than through the minilateral.
The Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement agreed in July 2026 belongs to a family of agreements India has signed with partners - reciprocal access to each other's bases for refuelling, replenishment and repair. They extend operational reach without creating alliances or basing rights, which is the core of India's non-alignment-compatible defence diplomacy.
Hydrographic cooperation - charting seabed and coastal waters - is a low-visibility but high-value instrument. India's Navy has run hydrographic surveys for several Indian Ocean partners, building both goodwill and maritime domain awareness.
People-to-people ties are one of the five strands of the Roadmap to 2030. Indians form one of New Zealand's larger and faster-growing migrant communities, and diaspora links are routinely cited as the social base of the trade and education relationship.
GS Paper 2 > International Relations > Bilateral Groupings and Agreements; GS Paper 3 > Security
General Awareness > Defence Exercises, Dialogues and Groupings
General Awareness > International Organisations and Current Affairs
Defence dialogues themselves are rarely asked, but the groupings behind them - IORA, Five Eyes, Malabar, IPOI - are staple Prelims material.
A diplomatic tier above a normal bilateral relationship, signalling institutionalised summit-level engagement and cooperation across security, trade and technology.
Effective understanding of everything in the maritime domain that could affect security, safety, economy or environment - the purpose of centres like IFC-IOR.
A reciprocal agreement allowing each country's forces to use the other's facilities for refuelling, replenishment and repair.
The survey and charting of seas, coasts and seabed features for safe navigation and maritime planning.
The signals-intelligence alliance of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, originating in the 1946 UKUSA Agreement.