India-Vietnam Brahmos Missile Deal A Hot Shot At China

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.