Publication

India and Myanmar have had defense contacts going back to the early-1990s, when India began a constructive engagement with the military rulers of Myanmar. The scope of the defense engagement was, however, significantly constrained by the international isolation of Myanmar and India’s own ambivalence about Myanmar’s internal political situation. The political reforms in Myanmar since 2011 and the growing international engagement with this important eastern neighbor have freed Delhi from some of the earlier constraints. The paper locates India’s defense diplomacy with Myanmar in a historical perspective, reviews the expansion of bilateral security cooperation and examines the near-term prospects.