For years, Israel viewed the Indo-Pacific as a distant arena – important but ultimately secondary to the urgent realities of Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. That worldview is no longer sustainable. The wars of 2024–2025, including the Gaza conflict and the direct confrontation with Iran, have shifted Israel’s strategic horizon eastward.
The Indo-Pacific, stretching from the shores of India to Japan and Southeast Asia, has become a region Israel cannot afford to ignore. Three forces are driving this shift: the growing centrality of India and Japan as strategic anchor; the widening confrontation with China’s assertive behavior; and the uncertainty generated by the Trump administration’s emerging Indo-Pacific posture.
Together, they create a new landscape in which Israel must reposition itself or risk strategic irrelevance in the world’s most dynamic mega-region.
Israel’s strategic moment
The war with Iran fundamentally altered Israel’s threat perception and the global response patterns around it. In an interconnected security environment, Israel discovered what India, Japan, Australia, and Southeast Asian states had already learned: There is no such thing as a geographically “local” conflict anymore. Regional wars ripple across global supply chains, energy markets, technology ecosystems, and great-power competition.
For countries in the Indo-Pacific, the Israel-Iran confrontation reinforced anxieties about the use of drones, missiles, cyber tools, and strategic choke points. For Israel, this opened the door to a new type of strategic conversation – one that goes far beyond arms sales and technology transfers.
Today, key Indo-Pacific states see Israel not just as a weapons provider but as a partner in resilience: in missile defense, cyber defense, anti-drone innovation, and intelligence cooperation. Precisely because Israel has been living “the future of warfare” for a decade, Indo-Pacific states now see its experience as directly relevant to their regional threats.
India: The pivotal link
India is no longer a “rising power”; it is a decisive, agenda-setting force in the Indo-Pacific. New Delhi’s assertive posture after the Pahalgam massacre and during Operation Sindoor highlighted the shift in Indian strategic culture: calibrated force, clear red lines, and a readiness to reshape regional deterrence.
For Israel, India is the most important Indo-Pacific partner for five reasons:
- Strategic alignment against Iran-backed networks – India faces its own ecosystem of Pakistan-based and China-enabled terror organizations. The parallels with Israel’s environment create deep operational affinity.
- Technology complementarity – Israel’s advantage in sensors, missile defense, early warning, cyber, and autonomous systems pairs naturally with India’s scale, production capacity, and Indo-Pacific reach.
- Energy and maritime security – Israel’s integration into IMEC (India–Middle East–Europe Corridor) ties its economic future to Indian connectivity.
- Diaspora politics and national resilience – India’s domestic narrative after Sindoor resembles Israel’s narrative post-October.
- China as the quiet shadow – New Delhi’s strategic competition with Beijing mirrors Israel’s growing concerns about Chinese power projection.
India is, in practice, Israel’s geopolitical multiplier in the Indo-Pacific.
Japan: The stabilizing power Israel cannot ignore
Japan’s transformation in defense spending, doubling to 2% of GDP and loosening of arms-export restrictions, along with its new strategic focus on counter-strike capabilities, places Tokyo at the center of Indo-Pacific stability.
For Israel, this is no longer a purely diplomatic relationship. Japan is entering domains where Israel excels: critical infrastructure protection, space security, dual-use technologies, and missile defense ecosystems.
Tokyo is also a key moderating power vis-à-vis China. Countries across Southeast Asia treat Japan as a “safe partner” in moments when they cannot rely too heavily on the United States or China. For Israel, integrating into Japanese-led frameworks for supply chain diversification, AI ethics, and maritime domain awareness offers a unique bypass to regional hesitations about defense cooperation.
The challenge of a Trump 2.0 Indo-Pacific strategy
US President Donald Trump’s administration's early signals show a strategy that is more transactional, more tariff-driven, and more unpredictable. Three consequences stand out:
- The US–China confrontation will intensify, forcing Indo-Pacific states to hedge more aggressively.
- Defense cooperation will become conditional, driven by cost-sharing and bilateral bargaining.
- Regional allies will seek additional security anchors beyond Washington.
This creates both opportunity and risk for Israel. Opportunity: Indo-Pacific states will diversify partnerships, making Israeli technology and intelligence more relevant. Risk: Israel will have to manage its positions carefully to avoid being pulled into a US-China rivalry that it cannot strategically sustain.
The Trump administration will expect Israel to align much more clearly against China on ports, infrastructure, cyber, and technology transfers. That alignment may be necessary, but it will not be cost-free.
China: The structural challenge
China has moved from competitor to systemic challenger. In the Middle East, Beijing seeks deeper influence through Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf connectivity networks. In the Indo-Pacific, its coercive tools – military, economic, technological – are shaping regional fear dynamics.
For Israel, three issues converge: cyber and data exposure through Chinese infrastructure; dependence on Chinese components in Israeli hi-tech defense supply chains; and China’s growing closeness with Iran and Pakistan.
The Indo-Pacific offers Israel the ability to rebalance this exposure by partnering with India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia on resilient supply chains, secure critical technologies, and trusted manufacturing ecosystems.
What Israel must do now
Israel’s entry into the Indo-Pacific is no longer a theoretical project. It is a strategic necessity. Israel must remain relevant and institutionalize an Indo-Pacific strategy not just scattered bilateral relations. It must also deepen the trilateral formats: Israel–India–Japan and Israel–India–UAE.
Additionally, Israel must build Indo-Pacific-focused defense R&D and joint production initiatives; invest in maritime domain awareness and supply-chain security partnerships; and position itself as a resilience partner, not merely a defense exporter.
The Indo-Pacific is where the next decade of global security competition will be decided. Israel cannot afford to stand on the sidelines.
The more unstable the Middle East becomes, the more essential it is for Israel to anchor itself in the world’s most strategic mega-region – where its technological, intelligence, and operational advantages can shape real partnerships.
Israel’s future security depends not only on what happens in Gaza or Tehran but also on what happens in New Delhi, Tokyo, and the wider Indo-Pacific.
Dr. Lauren Dagan Amoss is a member of Forum Dvorah, which promotes women in Israel’s foreign and defense policy community.