Will Japan Become a Permanent Part of US-India-led Naval Exercise? ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Ankit Panda)

INS Shivalik entering port at Japan during Malabar exercises in 2014 ( Image credits- Indian Navy)

Source- The Diplomat

Author- Ankit Panda

Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces (MSDF) will likely be a permanent participant in the U.S.-India-led Malabar naval exercise going forward, according to a report by the Yomiuri Shimbun. As Prashanth Parameswaran noted in these pages recently, the MSDF will return to the Malabar exercise this year in October, which will take place in the Bay of Bengal, off the Indian coast. This will be the first time the MSDF will have returned to participate in Malabar in the Bay of Bengal—it first did so in 2007 in a larger exercise which comprised the navies of Australia, Singapore in addition to the U.S. and Indian navies. Malabar began as an annual bilateral naval exercise in 1992 and usually alternates between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

In addition to Malabar 2007, Japan participated in the exercise’s 2009 and 2014 iterations. Its involvement in Malabar 2015 marks the first time Japan has participated in the exercises in two consecutive years. Japan’s increasing participation comes amid a general strategic convergence between India and Japan, and a reassessment of the U.S.-Japan defense guidelines spurred by reforms pursued by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Japan and India, while not allies, regard each other as strategic global partners. Starting in late 2013, the Japan-India Maritime Exercise (JIMEX) formalized regular bilateral naval exercises between New Delhi and Tokyo; the first iteration of that exercise was held in the Bay of Bengal in December 2013.

According to the Yomiuri report, the MSDF will send destroyers and maritime surveillance aircraft to participate in mock anti-air and anti-submarine warfare drills with their U.S. and Indian counterparts. Malabar has historically also had a focus on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, anti-piracy, and search and rescue.

If Japan formally becomes a permanent, yearly participant in Malabar, it would be a significant development in U.S.-India-Japan trilateralism. Three-way cooperation between these like-minded democracies has been growing in recent years, but formal military cooperation has been limited. In fact, Malabar 2007 could have led to a broader formalization of a regular naval exercise incorporating the United States, India, Japan, and Australia (back then, this was Abe’s vision for a “quadrilateral” security dialogue among like-minded Asian states), but progress was stalled due to a perception that this would alienate China—Australia hasn’t returned to Malabar since 2007. With China’s assertive and revisionist moves in the East and South China Seas in recent years and Japan’s subsequent moves toward normalization under Abe, Tokyo’s regular participation in naval exercises across the region, including Malabar, will be less contentious. 

About the author- Ankit Panda is a foreign affairs analyst, writer, and editor with expertise in international relations, political economy, international security, and crisis diplomacy. He has been an editor at The Diplomat since 2013. His analysis and reports have been widely cited and reprinted, including in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, Reuters blogs, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, International Business Times, Lowy Interpreter, Newsweek, RealClearWorld, RealClearDefense, Slate, the Daily Dish, the Daily Beast, Business Insider, and Vice, among others. His articles have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Urdu, Thai, and Russian. Panda has additionally provided expert commentary for the BBC, Voice of America, SiriusXM radio, and CCTV, among others. He hosts and produces a popular podcast on geopolitics for The Diplomat. Panda’s work as a policy researcher has been presented to the European Union, the United States Department of State, the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, among others. His work is widely cited by academics and think-tank researchers. He maintains involvement in track-two exchanges in North America, Europe, India, and Japan. He has lived or worked in India, Belgium, Jordan, France, Malaysia, the United States, Sweden, and Japan, and traveled extensively.

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