Four Pillars for a Decade: The RAKSHA Defence Diplomacy Document

On 3 September 2026, Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh released 'RAKSHA', a document on defence diplomacy that sets out India's roadmap for global defence partnerships over the next ten years. Present were the Chief of the Army Staff, General Dhiraj Seth, the Defence Secretary, the Secretary (Defence Production), the Secretary (East) of the Ministry of External Affairs, the Vice Chiefs of the Air and Naval Staffs, and the Chief of Integrated Defence Staff.

That attendance list is itself the first lesson. Defence diplomacy sits across the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of External Affairs and the National Security Council Secretariat — which is why all three were in the room.

The four pillars

The document describes defence diplomacy as a core pillar of India's foreign policy and positions India as an anchor of peace, stability and a rules-based order.

What defence diplomacy actually is

Strip the phrase down. Defence diplomacy is the use of the armed forces and defence establishment as instruments of foreign policy in peacetime — not to fight, but to build relationships that make fighting less likely, or make it go better if it comes. Its tools are concrete:

• Exercises — units of two or more countries training together, so that they can operate together.
• Training — foreign officers and cadets at Indian institutions, and Indian personnel abroad. Cadets from friendly countries have trained at the NDA and the IMA for decades, producing generations of foreign officers with an Indian connection.
• Defence attachés — uniformed officers posted in embassies, the standing channel between militaries.
• Port calls and flag-showing — a warship in a foreign harbour.
• Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) — the fastest way a military earns goodwill.
• Arms transfers and Lines of Credit — equipment sold or financed, which binds the buyer to the seller for spares, training and upgrades for decades.

Each of the four RAKSHA pillars maps onto that list. Capacity Building is exercises and training; Indigenous Exports is arms transfers; Maritime Security is port calls and HADR; Strategic Partnerships is the treaty-level layer over all of it.

The exercises you must be able to name

Capacity Building in practice means the bilateral exercise calendar, and it is among the most reliably asked NDA lists.

Learn these as name-partner-service triplets; the exam swaps one element. Garuda is air, Varuna is naval, both with France — the commonest confusion.

Net Security Provider and First Responder

The Maritime Security pillar uses two phrases that have precise meanings.

Net Security Provider describes a State that contributes more security to a region than it consumes — patrolling sea lanes, countering piracy, sharing maritime domain awareness, and being available to smaller neighbours who cannot secure their own waters. The term has been attached to India's Indian Ocean role since about 2011, and its institutional expression is the Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region at Gurugram (2018), where partner navies post liaison officers to share a common maritime picture.

First Responder refers to HADR: being the first military to arrive when a disaster strikes the neighbourhood. The record is long — Operation Rahat (Yemen evacuation, 2015), Operation Dost (Türkiye and Syria earthquakes, 2023), Operation Sadbhav (Typhoon Yagi relief, 2024) and Operation Brahma (Myanmar earthquake, 2025). Each is an exercise in the same capabilities war requires — airlift, sealift, field hospitals, command and control — deployed for goodwill.

Both phrases sit inside SAGAR — Security and Growth for All in the Region, the maritime doctrine articulated in 2015.

The document and the day's other event

The same day, the India-Belgium Defence CEOs Roundtable brought Belgium's Defence Minister together with Raksha Rajya Mantri Sanjay Seth, the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers, with a pitch for co-development and co-production in cyber security, AI-enabled unmanned aerial systems, underwater domain vehicles and complex weapon systems.

Read the two events together. RAKSHA is the doctrine; the roundtable is the doctrine in operation — the Indigenous Exports and Strategic Partnerships pillars applied to one European partner on the afternoon the document was released. A candidate who connects the two has understood what a roadmap is for.

The line offered at the roundtable — that strategic autonomy is best secured through credible, mutually beneficial collaboration — is the intellectual centre of the whole document. Autonomy is no longer defined as making everything at home; it is defined as having enough partners that no single one can dictate terms.

🔑 Revision block

• RAKSHA defence diplomacy document released by Rajnath Singh on 3 September 2026; a ten-year roadmap.
• Four pillars: Strategic Partnerships · Capacity Building · Indigenous Exports · Maritime Security.
• Defence diplomacy = armed forces as a peacetime foreign-policy instrument: exercises, training, attachés, port calls, HADR, arms transfers and Lines of Credit.
• Net Security Provider = contributes more regional security than it consumes; institutional form — IFC-IOR, Gurugram, 2018. First Responder = HADR: Rahat 2015, Dost 2023, Sadbhav 2024, Brahma 2025.
• Doctrine: SAGAR (2015) — Security and Growth for All in the Region.
• Exercises: Yudh Abhyas (USA, Army), Malabar (USA-Japan-Australia, Navy), Varuna (France, Navy), Garuda (France, Air), Indra (Russia), Ajeya Warrior (UK), Dharma Guardian (Japan), Kazind, Sampriti (Bangladesh), Surya Kiran (Nepal), Mitra Shakti (Sri Lanka), Ekuverin (Maldives).
• Present at release: COAS Gen Dhiraj Seth, CISC Air Marshal Tejinder Singh, VCAS Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit, VCNS Vice Admiral Ajay Kochhar, MEA Secretary (East).
• Same day: India-Belgium Defence CEOs Roundtable — co-development and co-production; cyber, AI-enabled UAS, underwater vehicles, complex weapons.

🎯 Practice MCQs

Q1. The RAKSHA document released in September 2026 concerns: (a) defence procurement (b) defence diplomacy (c) defence pensions (d) border infrastructure → (b).

Q2. The time horizon of the RAKSHA roadmap is: (a) five years (b) ten years (c) fifteen years (d) 2047 → (b).

Q3. Which of the following is not a RAKSHA pillar? (a) Capacity Building (b) Indigenous Exports (c) Nuclear Deterrence (d) Maritime Security → (c).

Q4. Exercise Garuda is conducted between India and: (a) USA (b) Russia (c) France (d) Japan → (c) — an air force exercise.

Q5. Exercise Malabar involves India with: (a) USA only (b) USA and Japan (c) USA, Japan and Australia (d) France and UK → (c).

Q6. Exercise Surya Kiran is held with: (a) Sri Lanka (b) Bangladesh (c) Nepal (d) Bhutan → (c).

Q7. The Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region is located at: (a) Mumbai (b) Kochi (c) Gurugram (d) Port Blair → (c), since 2018.

Q8. Operation Dost was India's relief operation for: (a) Nepal earthquake (b) Türkiye and Syria earthquakes (c) Myanmar earthquake (d) Yemen evacuation → (b), in 2023.

Q9. SAGAR stands for: (a) Strategic Access to Gulf and Arabian Routes (b) Security and Growth for All in the Region (c) Sea Governance and Regional Access (d) Sagarmala Growth and Regional Alliance → (b).

Q10. "Net Security Provider" describes a State that: (a) receives security guarantees (b) contributes more security to a region than it consumes (c) hosts foreign bases (d) has a no-first-use doctrine → (b).

Q11. Exercise Indra is conducted with: (a) Indonesia (b) Israel (c) Russia (d) Iran → (c).

Q12. Consider the following: 1. Exercise Varuna is a naval exercise with France. 2. Exercise Yudh Abhyas is an Army exercise with the USA. (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both (d) Neither → (c).

📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)

Defence-diplomacy questions run in four shapes. The exercise item — name matched to partner and service, with one element swapped; this is the most repeated NDA defence question of all. The doctrine item — SAGAR expanded, or Net Security Provider defined. The operation item — a named HADR operation matched to its country and year. The document item — a policy paper's title, horizon and pillars.

The fresh 2026 hook is RAKSHA's four pillars and ten-year horizon, well suited to a which-is-not-a-pillar question. A statement pair combining two exercises is the likeliest single item, with one partner planted wrong. As always, we describe the recurring pattern, not any exact past question.

Preparing for the NDA? Defence diplomacy is a list topic with a concept behind it — learn the exercise table cold and the four pillars will make sense of it. Build the base with our NDA general knowledge notes, follow the daily NDA current affairs, and train with our ex-officer faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.

✍️ Written by Col D.N. Sharma — Defence studies & technology faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk. The Cavalier, founded by ex-Army officers, has trained NDA/CDS/SSB aspirants since 2001 (Facebook · YouTube).

Source: PIB / Ministry of Defence, 3 September 2026. Exercise and doctrine details cross-verified with independent sources.