By any measure, India’s quiet winding up from the Ayni airbase in Tajikistan marks the end of an important, if understated, chapter in its post–Cold War foreign policy and Central Asia engagement. The base—known locally as the Gissar Military Aerodrome—was India’s first and only real overseas military facility, established in the early 2000s as part of a bold attempt to project power into Central Asia.
When I emphasise the word “real,” it’s to highlight the distinction between a true overseas military base and the kinds of facilities India typically operates. A classic example of an overseas base is the one that the United States maintains in Germany or Japan—commanded by American officers, governed under US laws, and enjoying a degree of extraterritorial control.
India’s arrangements abroad are fundamentally different. What New Delhi has maintained so far are detachments or access facilities where Indian personnel operate with the consent and in close coordination with the host nation, rather than under Indian sovereignty. The only times India has briefly operated bases outside its borders were during wartime or peacekeeping interventions. In 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, Indian forces temporarily used a couple of bases in Dhaka before quickly winding them up; a similar pattern followed during the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) mission in Sri Lanka, where temporary installations were vacated once the operation ended.
Even in Mauritius, India’s presence takes the form of joint access and cooperation, not ownership. India has personnel stationed there, but the facilities remain under Mauritian control.
Against that backdrop, the Ayni base in Tajikistan stood apart. It was India’s only truly distinct overseas military foothold—an installation that symbolised the projection of Indian power and influence in a region crucial to its long-term security interests.
Two decades later, that one-of-a-kind experiment has come to an end.
The episode offers a revealing look at the limits of Indian power projection, the fragility of Central Asian “multi-vector” diplomacy, the uneasy realities of great-power competition that now define Eurasia and the emerging hybrid models of strategic posturing—a key assertion I will return to later in the piece.
A base born of geopolitical ambition
Ayni’s origins lie in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the United States invaded Afghanistan and the international order briefly seemed open to new alignments. In 2002, the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, advised by a generation of strategic thinkers convinced that India needed to project power beyond the subcontinent, moved quickly to partner with Tajikistan.
Furthermore, India’s strategic interest in Dushanbe, particularly in the Ayni airbase, also emerged directly in the aftermath of the 1999 Kargil War. The Kargil Review Committee had identified serious gaps in intelligence and early warning. Strengthening India’s presence in Central Asia was seen as one way to address those shortcomings and enhance strategic depth.
After joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2017, New Delhi sought to reinvigorate its ties with Dushanbe, which had begun to weaken amid Moscow’s apparent reluctance to support India’s strategic presence in the region.
The Indian Air Force and the Border Roads Organisation, thus, spent roughly $70 million rebuilding the airfield just west of Dushanbe. Its 3,200-meter runway could handle most fixed-wing aircraft; new hangars, fuel depots, and maintenance facilities were added. This was not just an infrastructure project—it was a declaration of intent.
For the first time, India had a military footprint outside its borders, situated a mere 20 kilometres from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir across the narrow Wakhan Corridor, and within reach of Afghanistan’s northern frontier. Ayni symbolised New Delhi’s growing confidence in its ability to operate west of the Himalayas without relying on Pakistani routes.
At the time, the move was widely seen as a “masterstroke.” Ayni gave India an observation post near Afghanistan, a counterweight to Pakistan’s influence, and a sign of New Delhi’s willingness to engage with the geopolitics of Central Asia—a region long dominated by Russia and increasingly courted by China.
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Why Tajikistan Matters
For India, Tajikistan was less about immediate military utility and more about strategic geography. Landlocked and impoverished, it is nonetheless the closest Central Asian state to the Indian subcontinent and one that borders both Afghanistan and China.
For Russia, Tajikistan hosts its largest overseas base and serves as a frontline for the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). For China, it is a crucial node in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and a buffer against instability spilling from Afghanistan into Xinjiang.
In that crowded strategic environment, India’s presence was symbolically significant: a reminder that Eurasia’s security architecture was not to be a closed-door imperative. In 2015 and 2018, Indian analysts still cited Ayni as proof of New Delhi’s growing regional heft. Indian President Ram Nath Kovind’s and later PM Modi’s visits reasserted the strategically substantive part of India’s Central Asia engagement.
Is India the non-regional actor
By 2021, Tajikistan informed New Delhi that the lease would not be renewed. India was instructed to withdraw its personnel and equipment, effectively ending a two-decade presence. The winding up concluded in October 2025. Reports indicate that Tajikistan declined to renew India’s lease after pressure from Russia and China—both of which view New Delhi’s continued presence as an unwelcome assertion of what they call a ‘non-regional’ actor in their shared sphere of influence.
For Russia, India’s presence should have been acceptable—perhaps even useful—as a hedge against Western penetration into Central Asia. But as Moscow’s dependence on Beijing has deepened following its confrontation with the West and invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s bandwidth has shrunk. Moscow today must accept a narrower Eurasian order centred on its alignment with China—whether it likes it or not.
For Beijing, the calculus is more straightforward. China’s interests in Tajikistan—border security, BRI corridors, and influence over the Pamir region—make any competing military presence undesirable. An Indian base just beyond Xinjiang’s frontier was an irritant, and Chinese diplomacy reportedly made that clear to Dushanbe.
Ayni’s closure also underscores the contradictions within the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral framework, which Moscow has actively promoted in Indian circles as a counterweight to the West’s influence.
In theory, RIC is a platform for cooperation among Eurasia’s major powers. In practice, it offers little strategic coordination. The episode should prompt India to reassess how much strategic value these groupings actually deliver.
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The myth of multi-vector diplomacy
Central Asian governments often boast of pursuing “multi-vector” foreign policies, balancing relations among Russia, China, Europe and regional players like India and Turkey. But the Ayni episode exposes the limits of that balancing act.
Tajikistan remains the poorest of the Central Asian republics; data from Ranking.kz shows it has the region’s highest poverty indicators and lowest per capita income. In practice, its security relies on Russian troops and its economy on Chinese loans and investment.
When both Russia and China align in their preferences, smaller states have limited room to manoeuvre. Multi-vector diplomacy, it turns out, depends on great-power equilibrium. When that equilibrium is recalibrated, room to multi-align inevitably comes under strain.
Evolving concept of ‘basing’ in great-power competition
The broader significance of Ayni’s closure lies in what it reveals about military basing in today’s world. In their 2024 book Great Power Competition and Overseas Bases, Andrew Yeo and Isaac Kardon argue that bases are no longer just launchpads for combat. They note the rise of “hybrid” basing models—dual-use ports, disguised facilities, or rotational access points that extend reach without permanent garrisons. The logic is clear—physical presence, however modest, still matters.
India’s modest presence at Ayni exemplified this principle. It gave New Delhi visibility and optionality in a volatile region. Its absence leaves a vacuum—symbolic and operational—that others, most likely China, will fill.
Timing amplifies the loss. In the renewed contest for influence around Afghanistan, India’s absence from its northern flank is striking. The Ayni base once offered vital access and intelligence reach. Yet, despite the promise of the 2012 “Connect Central Asia” policy and projects like Chabahar and the INSTC, India’s regional engagement remains under-resourced and uneven.
If India is serious about being a Eurasian power, it will need to pair ambition with endurance.
Swasti Rao is a Consulting Editor (International and Strategic Affairs) at ThePrint. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)
I don’t understand what’s her problem with Russia. Why she keep equating all the miltary aspects with Russia in negative quantum. I am finding it very odd. I started to read the article, then only I realised it is Swati Rao, just skipped everything. I know what she is going to say which is utter rubbish.