New Zealand aiming to firm up defence ties with India, says Defence Advisor Commodore Andy Dowling

New Zealand’s first resident defence advisor in New Delhi has described the rapidly expanding India–New Zealand military relationship as moving beyond novelty, with both sides planning a first bilateral naval exercise next year and deeper involvement in India’s Tarang Shakti air exercise in 2028.

Commodore Andy Dowling said the relationship has been revived after New Zealand commanded Combined Task Force 150 and India served as deputy commander. Subsequent high-level visits, including by New Zealand’s prime minister in March last year and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to New Zealand in July, produced a Defence Cooperation Agreement. A strategic dialogue has since produced a joint plan covering the next two to three years.

“I’m now here as the first resident, so we are taking this relationship very seriously,” Dowling said. “The aim is to remove the novelty so that we see each other as business-as-usual partners who are happy and comfortable working together.”

New Zealand’s participation in the recent Tarang Shakti multinational air exercise, hosted by India, offered a practical test. Dowling praised the Indian Air Force’s organisation of a complex event involving multiple nations and aircraft types, saying it generated genuine training value in a geographical setting unfamiliar to New Zealand crews.

“That was good. That was something we want to do,” he said. “When it comes back again in a couple of years’ time, then we’d like to be more involved.” He expressed hope that New Zealand aircraft would take part in a more substantial way in 2028.

Maritime cooperation is expected to remain the central pillar. Under the maritime cooperation agreement signed in July, the two navies are already discussing the shape of a bilateral exercise next year. Dowling said the aim was not merely to hold an activity for its own sake but to produce relevant training for both forces. “We’re both maritime nations by heart; we’re both trading nations. We depend on free and open oceans,” he noted.

On defence industry, Dowling highlighted the rapid expansion of India’s production and export base, citing systems such as the BrahMos missile supplied to the Philippines. With the India–New Zealand free-trade agreement entering into force on 20 October, he said the framework would make defence-industry partnerships easier to operationalise. “It offers opportunities for us to partner together and not be transactional,” he said. “The FTA for us will be really good. The trick is now to operationalise it and to use it.”

Dowling also pointed to a longer shared military history, from Gallipoli and the two world wars to the wartime service of a New Zealand ship that later became the Indian Navy’s flagship.