It aims to promote national and international security by carrying out research on defence and security-related issues and disseminating the knowledge among the policy-makers and wider public.

[2][3] The current director general is Ambassador Sujan R. Chinoy, who took over the reins of IDSA on 3 January 2019 on a three-year assignment.

It is funded by the Indian Ministry of Defence and plays a key role in shaping India's foreign and security policies.

The institute has a strong research faculty of more than fifty distinguished scholars drawn from academia, defence, foreign affairs, media and other civil services.

[7] The Defence Minister of India informed the Indian parliament in 2012 that the IDSA appoints both civilian and military personnel to publish books, journal articles and reviews.

The Global Go To Think Tank Index, prepared annually by the University of Pennsylvania Foreign Policy Research Institute, ranked IDSA 55th in the world in 2013,[11] 105th in 2016 and 41st in 2017.