Expanding Scope of India-US Military-to-Military Cooperation

Author: Sanjay Kumar, Neelam Kumari

Abstract:
India and the United States at present enjoy strategic partnership on a multi-dimensional aspects and the foremost being the defence and security cooperation. Joint military exercises form an important component of the unprecedented developments that have witnessed in India-US defence relations over the last more than one decade. With every passing year, India-US military-to-military exercises have gained significant momentum and expanded its scope to cope with the contemporary security challenges facing the world. India and the United States have institutionalized the Malabar series of naval exercises plus the army and air force series of exercises which are being held on a regular basis. However, at present, navy-to-navy cooperation appears to be the most robust in terms of frequency of exercises and personnel exchanges being concluded on a regular basis. The increasing number of military-to-military exercises involving all the three branches is a reflection to the gaining security understanding between the two countries. The paper argues that the expanding scope of the joint military exercises is in response to India’s emerging military capabilities and its readiness to play a global role to meet the global challenges of the twenty-first century. The paper attempts to make an analysis on the progress made so far in the directions of joint military-to-military exercises between India and the United States. Besides, it also discusses the advantage of such military exercises to India.

Keywords:India, US, Military-to-Military Exercises, Interoperability, Security Challenges, Commanding, Foundation, WMD, Combat.

DOI:

International Journal of Trade & Commerce (Vol: 6 Issue:2)