Key Highlights
- INS Mumbai, India’s indigenously built guided‑missile destroyer, is active in La Perouse 2025 alongside eight other navies.
- The drill unfolds across the Malacca, Sunda and Lombok straits – chokepoints that channel the bulk of world sea‑borne commerce.
- Exercises stress maritime surveillance, interdiction, air‑defence, surface combat and VBSS (Visit‑Board‑Search‑Seizure) tactics.
- Participation underlines India’s SAGAR doctrine, promoting a rules‑based order in the Indo‑Pacific.
Detailed Insights
The fourth edition of the multinational maritime exercise La Perouse began on 16 January 2025, assembling warships from Australia, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada and India. Conducted in the strategically sensitive passages of the Malacca, Sunda and Lombok straits, the scenario tests participants’ ability to operate jointly in high‑traffic, narrow waterways.
Training modules encompass a spectrum of operations: coordinated surface warfare, layered anti‑air defence, cross‑deck amphibious landings, and constabulary missions such as VBSS. These drills aim to sharpen real‑time situational awareness, improve interoperability, and enable rapid information exchange among the fleets.
India’s contribution is embodied by INS Mumbai, a domestically designed and constructed guided‑missile destroyer. By field‑testing its sensors, weapons and command systems alongside peer navies, the vessel showcases India’s growing shipbuilding capabilities and its commitment to collective security under the SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) framework.
Since its inception in 2021, La Perouse has been held biennially, evolving into a cornerstone of Indo‑Pacific maritime cooperation. Each iteration has broadened the participant roster and expanded the operational envelope, reflecting the escalating strategic significance of multilateral naval drills in the region.
Key Concepts
- VBSS (Visit‑Board‑Search‑Seizure): A naval boarding operation used to inspect, interdict or seize vessels suspected of illegal activity.
- Situational Awareness: The real‑time understanding of the maritime environment, including friend‑or‑foe identification, traffic patterns and potential threats.
- SAGAR: India’s policy initiative – “Security and Growth for All in the Region” – aimed at fostering a stable, rules‑based maritime order.
- Multi‑Domain Exercise: Training that integrates surface, air and subsurface elements to simulate complex, realistic combat scenarios.