In late May 2018, the Japanese press announced that Japan’s Self-Defense Forces are finalizing plans to conduct counter-terrorism exercises with the Indian army in the northeast part of India later in the year¹—the first overseas combat training exercise of its kind for the traditionally homebound Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF). In July 2017, an India-Japan agreement for cooperation on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy went into force²—the first such pact by Japan with any country not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and an extraordinary exception from the only country to have been attacked with nuclear weapons. Although noteworthy, these pathbreaking exceptions to Japan’s post-WWII security patterns are not astounding. They actually are two milestones in a series of historic accommodations between Tokyo and New Delhi demonstrating the steady growth of a strategic bilateral partnership.

In mid-2018, New Delhi and Tokyo have been softening their rhetoric toward China during what many view as an ongoing period of uncertainty regarding the Trump administration’s ultimate posture in East Asia.³ Nonetheless, they view themselves as the bookends for a regional alternative to what both see as an unacceptable Chinese program to make the Indo-Pacific region less open and far more hostile to the free and fair flow of goods, services, people, and ideas. The remarkable pace of the growing strategic relationship is a significant geostrategic development.

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