Rajnath Singh to attend ASEAN Defence Ministers Plus meetings in Laos from Nov 20-22

New Delhi: Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to visit Laos from November 20-22 for the 11th ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting-Plus (ADMM Plus), Defence officials said on Thursday.

Earlier on Tuesday, Rajnath Singh said that India faces a diverse range of security challenges, from traditional border-related threats to unconventional issues such as terrorism, cyberattacks and hybrid warfare.

Addressing the Delhi Defence Dialogue organised on the theme “Adaptive Defence: Navigating the Changing Landscape of Modern Warfare” at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, he said, “We are living in a world of geopolitical and economic flux, full of uncertainties, with changes taking place at an unprecedented pace in history. The traditional mindset of perceiving reality as something static is being challenged, and the compartmentalised understanding of studies is evolving into a more multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approach.”

The Union Minister highlighted that defence and security, both in the conceptual and practical domains, are experiencing the overwhelming impact of the information age.

The ADMM-Plus is a platform for the ASEAN member states -Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam- and its eight Dialogue Partners -India, US, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand- to strengthen security and defence cooperation.

India became the dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992. Furthermore, the inaugural ADMM-Plus was convened in Vietnam’s Hanoi on October 12, 2010.

Since 2017, the ADMM-Plus Ministers meetings have been held annually to bolster cooperation between ASEAN and the Plus countries.