India, US gear up for another military drill in September

The drills come at a time when India and China are already locked in a standoff on their land border in the Himalayas

NEW DELHI: India and the United States are set to conduct joint military exercises in September after Malabar naval war games with Japan in the Bay of Bengal last month.

According to a Times of India report, India and the US are expanding the scope, complexity and frequency of their bilateral military exercises as part of their "strategic partnership and convergence ".



The finalisation of the joint military drills, which will be held at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in the US from September 14 to 27, comes at a time when India and China are locked in a standoff on their land border in the Himalayas.

However, the report added that New Delhi was as yet unwilling to join any formal trilateral or quadrilateral security axis to counter China's aggressiveness and expansionism in the Asia-Pacific region.

The US departments of defence and state, in a recent joint report to their Congress said, "We see a growing convergence with India on our strategic outlook for the region, and we view India as an increasingly important regional security partner within and beyond the Indo-Asia-Pacific region." The report came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump vowed to strengthen the already expansive India-US strategic ties in June, ensuring there were no stark departures from the previous Obama and Bush regimes, said the TOI report.



Over 200 Indian soldiers will take part in the "battalion-level field training exercise with a brigade-level command post" during the military drills, which the two countries now want to upgrade to "a more complex, combined arms, division-level exercise".

In July this year, a US aircraft carrier strike group began Malabar naval exercises with India and Japan. The maritime drills were the largest since India and the US launched the exercise in 1992. Japan was later included.

 

This story originally appeared on the Times of India.