On the night of May 9, 2025, Pakistan’s military had between 30-45 seconds to decide whether incoming missiles at Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi carried nuclear warheads. That was the entire decision window. By the time the assessment was complete, 11 of Pakistan’s 13 major airbases had already been struck. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif later admitted publicly, at an event in Azerbaijan, that his armed forces had planned a retaliatory strike for 4:30 am of May 10, but before that hour arrived, BrahMos had already done its work. India reportedly launched 15 to 19 BrahMos missiles during the four-day conflict, and none of them could be intercepted.
No marketing campaign could have written that story. No defence expo demonstration could have produced that proof. The BrahMos missile sold itself in the skies over Pakistan, and the world was watching. Defence minister Rajnath Singh confirmed that the missile’s performance during Operation Sindoor garnered attention from over 14 countries seeking to acquire the system. That number is not a projection. It is a queue.
There is a concept in defence procurement called combat validation. It means a weapon system has been used in actual warfare, against a real adversary, under real conditions, and it worked. Combat-validated systems carry a premium of trust that no factory test or simulated exercise can replicate. Before May 2025, BrahMos was widely respected on paper. After Operation Sindoor, it became something far more valuable — a weapon with a verified operational record that Pakistan’s Chinese-supplied air defences could not touch. The operation’s success hinged on a multi-layered strategy: pilotless drones provoked Pakistani radars into activation, followed by Harop kamikaze munitions to disable them, paving the way for BrahMos and French SCALP missiles. Debris from a BrahMos booster and nose cap, recovered near Bikaner in Rajasthan, corroborated its use, underscoring the missile’s fire-and-forget reliability.
That fire-and-forget capability is the insight that drives every procurement conversation happening right now. A missile that cannot be jammed, tracked, or intercepted does not simply add to a country’s deterrence. It multiplies it. One BrahMos battery sitting on a Vietnamese coastline forces a Chinese naval planner to reroute an entire task force. Thirty missiles do not produce 30 times the deterrence of one. They produce the credible threat of thirty independent, simultaneous, unstoppable strikes. That is a categorically different strategic calculation. Countries in the South China Sea, in the Persian Gulf, and in Latin America are not just buying a missile. They are buying a deterrent effect that China’s defence technology ecosystem cannot currently provide to them.
The Philippines was the first buyer, signing a $375 million contract in January 2022 for three BrahMos coastal defence batteries. Russia has conveyed no objection to further exports, with verbal assurance given by Defence minister Andrei Belousov to Rajnath Singh in December 2025. Vietnam and Indonesia have long been interested, with the combined value of proposed deals estimated at over ₹4,000 crore, around $450 million. Vietnam is set to become the second Asian nation after the Philippines to acquire BrahMos, with a deal valued at approximately ₹5,990 crore, around $700 million, covering missiles for both army and navy applications. Beyond BrahMos, India is offering Vietnam three to four offshore patrol vessels, 14 high-speed patrol boats, MRO support for Su-30 fighters and Kilo-class submarines, and submarine batteries under a $500 million line of credit. This is not a missile transaction. It is a comprehensive defence relationship being assembled around a combat-proven centrepiece.
Beyond Southeast Asia, the UAE was explicitly highlighted as a prospective buyer by Alexander Maksichev, co-director of BrahMos Aerospace, in November 2024. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and Egypt have shown interest from West Asia. Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela have expressed interest in coastal and naval variants from Latin America. Indonesia’s strategic motivation is equally clear — securing its vast archipelagic waters and strategic chokepoints, with the proposed deal involving shore-based anti-ship variants similar to the Philippines configuration. Three continents, one missile, one combat record.
The leverage point India identified years ago was simple: Export demand would eventually outrun domestic production capacity if not anticipated. The BrahMos Aerospace Integration and Testing Facility in Lucknow, inaugurated in May 2025, is built on 80 hectares provided by the Uttar Pradesh government at a cost of ₹300 crore. It is designed to produce 80 to 100 BrahMos missiles annually, with plans to scale to 100 to 150 next-generation variants each year. The facility operates as part of the UP Defence Industrial Corridor spanning Lucknow, Kanpur, Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, and Chitrakoot. The Indo-Russian joint venture, with 80% Indian content, now eyes $2 billion in annual revenues, per CEO Atul Rane.
The feedback loop this creates is the real story. More export revenue funds more R&D. More R&D produces BrahMos-NG. The next-generation variant, with its first flight scheduled for 2026, is 50% lighter and three metres shorter, with greater compatibility with smaller platforms, broadening the export market further. Countries buying BrahMos today are buying into a product line with a visible upgrade path. Every new customer increases India’s production volume, which lowers per-unit cost, which makes the next export deal easier to close, which funds the next generation variant. The feedback loop compounds. This is the industrial logic that Israel figured out in the 1990s and that India is now beginning to execute at scale.
The historical comparison worth making here is Israel’s defence export model. Israel built its defence technology ecosystem not through large tenders alone, but by routing operational problems to fast-moving companies and then backing those companies all the way to production and export. The result, over 20 years, was a defence industrial base exporting to more than 130 countries and producing some of the most operationally tested technology in the world. India is at the beginning of that same arc, and BrahMos is the proof of concept. When a country buys a weapons system, it buys a relationship. It trains its soldiers on Indian simulators. It depends on Indian spare parts. It calls Indian engineers when something needs attention. It aligns, quietly but consequentially, with Indian strategic interests. Beyond BrahMos, India is simultaneously offering Akash air defence systems and Pinaka multi-launch rocket systems to Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, the UAE, and Brazil, building an integrated Indian defence supply relationship rather than a single platform transaction.
Each BrahMos sale is a node in a growing network of Indian defence relationships. Vietnam depends on Indian missiles for coastal defence. The Philippines depends on Indian delivery schedules and spare parts. Indonesia, when the deal closes, will depend on Indian training simulators and lifecycle support. A country that depends on Indian weapons systems for its national security does not treat India as a peripheral partner in any diplomatic conversation. That is strategic influence of a kind that no summit communique can manufacture. India’s defence exports have surged nearly 30 times over the past decade, with DRDO chairperson Samir V Kamat predicting exports could reach ₹50,000 crore by 2028-29, driven primarily by BrahMos demand. For most of independent India’s history, the country was among the world’s largest arms importers. Rajnath Singh said it plainly when flagging off the first Lucknow batch: India is now playing the role of a giver, not just a taker. That sentence, spoken at a missile factory in Uttar Pradesh, is the strategic summary of where India now stands.
Fifteen to 19 missiles launched. None intercepted. Eleven of 13 Pakistani airbases struck. Fourteen countries in active procurement discussions. Two export contracts worth $455 million signed within months of the conflict, with talks ongoing with at least five to six additional nations. A new manufacturing facility in Lucknow producing its first batch. A $7 billion order portfolio covering both domestic and export demand. A next-generation variant entering flight testing in 2026.
What is emerging from all of this is not simply a successful weapons programme. It is India’s emergence as a credible, combat-validated, full-lifecycle defence exporter with an industrial corridor, an upgrade roadmap, and a growing network of strategic customers. The BrahMos did not start that emergence. It accelerated it. Operation Sindoor did not create the market. It opened it. India’s job now is to build the production capacity, the diplomatic relationships, and the next-generation technology fast enough to hold the position it has just earned.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Sudhanshu Kumar, doctoral candidate, School of International Studies, Jawahar Lal Nehru University.
