The U.S.-India Major Defence Partnership (MDP) is a concept and a unique status accorded to India by the U.S. Congress in 2016. Its origin lies in the 'Agreed Minute on Defence Relations between the United States and India' in 1995, which was followed by the 'New Framework for India-US Defence Relations' signed in June 2005. The MDP status was created to elevate defense trade and technology sharing with India to a level equal to that of the United States' closest allies and partners. It solved the problem of bureaucratic obstacles and facilitated the release of high-end American defense technology to India.
The partnership works through an overarching political instrument, the Framework for the U.S.-India Major Defense Partnership, which is an executive-level commitment. This framework is operationalized by four key foundational agreements: the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) (signed in 2002), the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) (2016), the Communications, Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) (2018), and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Intelligence (BECA) (2020). Key provisions of the partnership focus on strengthening interoperability across all domains—land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace—and bolstering defense industrial capacity through co-development and co-production.
The MDP connects to India's Strategic Trade Authorization Tier 1 (STA-1) status, which it received in 2018, further streamlining technology exchange. The relationship is steered by the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, inaugurated in September 2018, and is bolstered by multilateral mechanisms like the Quad. The partnership was recently updated with the signing of the 2025 Framework for the U.S.-India Major Defense Partnership on October 31, 2025, by Indian Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh and U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. This ten-year update supersedes the 2023 U.S.-India Roadmap for Defense Industrial Cooperation, but the four foundational agreements remain in place.