Japan's strategic outreach to India and the prospects of a Japan-India alliance

Largely driven by Japan's strategic outreach to India, Tokyo and Delhi have rapidly improved relations and enhanced their strategic cooperation since the turn of the century. Today, developments in bilateral relations are moving faster than - journalists and analysts can track, leading many observers to posit the emergence of Japan-India alliance. This article analyses the reasons behind Japan's strategic outreach to India and explores the conditions under which an alliance-understood as a formal association of states for the use (or nonuse) of military force in specific circumstances against a third party-might emerge between the two countries. It draws on existing scholarship on interstate alliances to examine the possible objectives, contours, operation and impact of such an alliance. It concludes that there are major obstacles in the way of an alliance forming and operating successfully. These include India's commitment to strategic autonomy; the incentives for limiting commitments and 'buck-passing' within a putative alliance; Chinese opposition and Beijing's ability to economically punish both parties; and differing views on US hegemony, world order and future Great Power status. Ultimately, Japan and India are better off being aligned-as they currently are-and not allied.