India, Aug. 31 -- If you keep out the US, which is on a long geopolitical vacation from the Indo-Pacific, Japan is India's most consequential strategic partner in the region. Japan may not have significant military power, but it possesses the strategic intent and political will to shape the Indo-Pacific. India has the military power and strategic intent, but one could argue that it needs more political will and economic power to shape the region. That is why India and Japan are such compelling and natural Indo-Pacific partners. The New Delhi-Tokyo strategic partnership, carefully nurtured in the midst of geopolitical headwinds and domestic political changes in Tokyo, now needs a quantum leap.

So, what is so special about the partnership?...