Three years ago, Manila bought a few shore-based missile batteries from India on the face of it, a modest defence deal between two midsized nations. Over time, this has become one of the more significant strategic narratives in the Indo-Pacific and this week, Manila's own ambassador in New Delhi did some numbers and some language that few Indian officials would have been likely to do quite as straight. The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile has provided the Philippines with “credible deterrence” in the South China Sea, Ambassador Josel Ignacio said in the capital, adding that India was among the leading suppliers of the missile for future purchases. The endorsement is quite significant not because it was in any way a question of the technical punch of the missile, but because it validates something that India's defence establishment had hoped for since 2022 that a single successful export can change the thinking of an entire region about their security options.

The genesis of the story is simple. The Philippines' Department of Defence signed a $374 million contract with Indian firm Indo-Russian joint venture BrahMos Aerospace in January 2022 for three shore-based anti-ship missile batteries for the first time being exported overseas. The deliveries took place from April 2024 to April 2025 and the Philippine Marine Corps has been advancing the batteries towards full operational readiness. The land-based launcher, which has a strike range of about 290 kilometres and is placed along the country's coast, allows Manila to threaten any intruding vessel in the waters without having to match China ship-for-ship with a blue-water navy. Ignacio called it a useful word credible deterrence, the kind that makes an adversary think twice, instead of just negotiating with it.

Since then, India has presented Manila with an enhanced version of the batteries with an extended range of up to 400 kilometres, more than double the original batteries' range, and bringing the island to the Bashi Channel, the narrow strait between the South China Sea and the Western Pacific, where most Taiwan contingency planning has its focus.

The Philippine case is particularly interesting because it has turned into a template, which goes beyond bilateral relations. Vietnam has then ordered its own set of BrahMos, with its existing Russian-sourced Bastion-P coastal artillery. Indonesia has sought to double a previous order, reportedly as part of a package valued at some $200 million, and a port-development agreement. Other ASEAN countries are keenly observing, as the main principle here is an economic one: a small missile investment can cost the larger navy of the other ASEAN countries far more than buying ships of the same size would have. That is the type of asymmetric logic that also has led to interest in American systems such as Typhon and NMESIS around the region, and BrahMos is now firmly in that discussion as an alternative not of the West, and a cheaper alternative at that.

The business reality of this trend is not to be overlooked. India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said that BrahMos Aerospace reported revenue of over ₹5,200 crore ($620 million) in the previous financial year, the majority of which nearly ₹4,000 crore, or about $480 million was from export orders. India's defence exports hit a new high of ₹38,424 crore in the previous fiscal year, reaching over eighty countries and the number of registered exports has grown beyond 145. The government has set targets to export ₹50,000 crore worth of arms by 2028-29, while simultaneously aiming to produce ₹3 lakh crore worth of arms in the country, and officials cite the limited conflict between India and Pakistan last year as having given the two systems BrahMos and Akash air-defence system genuine battlefield credibility that won't come in a marketing brochure.This was not done by itself. It is part of a much larger Indian defence export drive that's now become an arithmetic reality. According to New Delhi's own data, defence exports have reached a record high of ₹38,424 crore in the past year, with the exports going to over eighty countries and the government has now set a formal target of reaching ₹50,000 crore of defence exports by 2028-29. The chart above matches the headline dollar numbers in the same numbering as the original deal in the Philippines, the new deal in Indonesia, the still to be finalized contracts, and the total of the joint venture's revenue for the year, in all of which the trend is the same.

The strategic reading is as important as the commercial one. For Beijing, the presence of shore-based anti-ship missiles in the Philippines, Vietnam and soon possibly in Indonesia adds to the dilemma of any China scenario that involves coercive pressure in the South China Sea, increasing the number of coastlines from which the expensive naval asset could be targeted. It fits the Washington, D.C. and the region's desire for supply diversification or for not relying on any single arms exporter over relying on an Indian missile for that purpose. For India, the price is much higher than the bill. The missile, which originated as a joint venture product of post-Cold War defence cooperation with Russia, is the biggest such success so far that has shown New Delhi that even Indian-made products can compete with established Western and Chinese defence companies when it comes to competing for revenue.

None of this will cancel out the fact that there is a power imbalance in the South China Sea. Three (or even nine) missile batteries don't eliminate China's naval mass, and Manila has taken care of its words in its own language: it's about making aggression more expensive, not about precluding it. But, in essence, so has been deterrence in smaller states facing larger states: not parity, but enough uncertainty in an adversary's calculations that restraint is the safer bet. The Philippine ambassador is right this week not just in being polite but in stating a fact: ten years of calm defence-building between the two capitals has yielded precisely what they both wanted, and which others in the region have discerned.