India and the United States are going to start a 15 day military exercise in Alaska on Friday. It is aimed to improve the cooperation between the two militaries. They look to enhance their ability to work together in battle and want to practice in a cold climate, like Alaska. They also want to learn each other’s best practices and get better at them. The United States and India have a history of working together militarily, as they have signed significant defence and security pacts over the past few years, such as the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016 that allows their militaries to use each other’s bases for repair and replenishment of supplies.
This is important because it shows that our connection with India is growing stronger if we are allowing our militaries to do exercises together for extended periods of time. This means that India feels comfortable enough with us which is a good thing to have a peaceful connection with a country that may have ties towards countries that the United States may not be best friends with. This exercise should allow the United States to establish India as a great alliance towards us if combat is necessary with another country.
This connects to discussion in class through the topic of global alliances and countries becoming closer with one another. Understanding which countries have ties towards each other is a huge part of International Relations, quite literally, the topic itself, how countries relate internationally. Having an exercise like this is just one example of how countries can become closer to one another, but at the same time, it can be a reason for countries to grow farther apart, so it just depends how it goes but it never hurts to try and get along.