By all accounts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel earlier this month was very successful. It was the first time an Indian head of government had visited the Jewish state. It was the culmination of normalization, which began with the establishment of full diplomatic relations in 1992. With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the United States as the sole superpower, New Delhi realized that it could benefit from Israel’s close relationship with Washington. This was considered essential to assuaging lingering American concerns over India’s intimate relationship with the Soviet Union during the days of bipolarity.

Moreover, with the Russian economy and its defense industry in shambles, India needed access to other sources of sophisticated weaponry to replace aging Soviet equipment, which Russia wasinitially unable to supply. With access to U.S. and European weapons markets denied because of India’s refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), New Delhi found in Israel a useful surrogate, one that could supply it with advanced military technology. Thus was established the basis of a burgeoning arms trade, which reached almost $600 million in 2016, making Israel the second-largest source of defense equipment for India, after Russia. Indian weapons acquisitions from Israel include AWACS, UAVs, radars, missiles and laser-guided bombs. Israel Aerospace Industries has recently signed an agreement to supply $630 million worth of long-range surface-to-air missile systems to the Indian navy. More deals are in the works.

Security cooperation between the two countries increased with the emergence of the Pakistan-based terrorist threat to India, first in