Indian BrahMos missiles in South China Sea

Geopolitics often throws up unusual paradoxes, and one has just emerged in the Indo-Pacific. The navies and marine forces of the US and the Philippines have trained together to defend the Southeast Asian nation’s coastal waters by simulating the use of the BrahMos anti-ship missile. The BrahMos is a supersonic anti-ship missile jointly developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya. The Philippines procured the missile from India under a $375-million deal signed in 2022. “US and Philippine Marines are training to defend against maritime strike rehearsals that simulate the use of recently acquired BrahMos…