Why the US Needs a Global Center-Right Partnership |
Why the US Needs a Global Center-Right Partnership
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A partnership among countries with shared values, such as the US, India, Israel, Italy, and Japan, could help mitigate challenges worldwide.
Last month’s US-India trade framework agreement has realigned the converging trajectory of the most consequential partnership of the early 21st century. The high stakes call for harnessing the untapped shared cultural and ideological political leanings of Republican and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) voters—accentuating faith, family, and nation (FFN)—to sustain political solidarity and tide over episodic policy dissonance between the world’s largest democracies.
Both the US and Indian governments have found, individually and collectively, geostrategic and political convergence with the transformative leaders of Japan, Italy, and Israel. The governments of Sanae Takaichi, Giorgia Meloni, and Benjamin Netanyahu are prioritizing policies aligned with those of the Trump and Modi administrations, which offer invaluable building blocks for catalyzing a long-lasting center-right political coalition pursuing collective and complementary national interests.
Cultural and ideological bonds constitute resiliency in relations between nations. The converging ideologies of the current US, Indian, Israeli, Italian, and Japanese governments present a timely opportunity to deepen cultural comprehension and solidarity among the five center-right nationalist traditions embedded in their respective dominant faiths. These bonds could play a crucial role in mitigating challenges and discord not only in the Middle East but also across the Transatlantic and Indo-Pacific communities.
International Conservative Ties That Strengthen and Bind
“I am a mother. I am Italian. I am a Christian,” proclaimed Giorgia Meloni in 2019 to become the first female prime minister of Italy and the third longest-serving prime minister in the history of the republic. She is on track to win a successive term in 2027.
“I am nationalist. I’m patriotic…I am born Hindu…So I’m a Hindu nationalist.” This statement has come to define Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure, the second-longest in the history of the world’s largest democracy. Modi has instilled stability and vigour in the Indian polity, which had languished under weak, short-lived, and often-overwhelmed coalition arrangements since 1989.
Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister and arguably the most straight-talking leader of the free world, recently led a historic landslide victory, securing a two-thirds supermajority in the lower house of the Diet for the conservative LDP, a first since its inception in 1955. She has been forthright in stating that the Chinese hostile takeover of Taiwan would constitute a national security risk for Japan and necessitate a military response. With her new mandate, she will fast-track Japan’s military and intelligence readiness, economic resilience, and security, and promote family values and patriotism.
Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is an avowed Jewish nationalist aggressively promoting Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish people.” He is presently engaged in a historic effort to neutralize the local military and terrorist threats to the Israeli people in close consonance with the United States. Labor and Likud-led governments have proudly embraced Israel as a Jewish state while jostling to define the term and consequent national character.
President Ronald Reagan’s tenets of “family values” and “peace through strength” continue to shape Republican priorities in the United States. Reagan, as well as President Donald Trump, Republican majorities, notwithstanding their differences in rhetoric, economic and foreign policies, share strong support for muscular military, Christian groups, and traditional families.
The ideals of faith, family, and nation animate the muscular center-right governments of India, Israel, Italy, Japan, and the United States. Modi is an heir to Ronald Reagan and Meloni and Takaichi to Margaret Thatcher in transforming the political landscapes of India, Japan, and Italy, respectively. They are popular mainstream conservatives, not opportunistic populists, who have dedicated their long political careers to honing their message and organizations with firm convictions.
The US, India, Israel, Italy, and Japan Convergence
The national interests of the US, India, Israel, Italy, and Japan are converging in unprecedented ways. The US-India partnership is often referred to as the most consequential of the 21st century, with unmatched scale across agriculture, space, and everything in between. India holds the United States as its largest trading partner and boasts a 500-million-and-growing middle-class market for American goods and services. India now produces 25 percent of Apple iPhones. The US-India military and technology partnership is advancing at a steady clip, notwithstanding momentary distractions such as the recent protracted trade negotiations.
India and Japan are deepening their one-of-a-kind “Special Strategic and Global Partnership,” second only in scope and impact to the US-India partnership. At the last annual meeting, the two nations signed over 100 memoranda on defense, technology, and economic security, with a stated aim of 10 trillion yen in Japanese investment in India by 2027. The India-Japan special strategic and global partnership is projected to grow more steeply following Sanae Takaichi’s overwhelming electoral mandate in recent elections.
India is Israel’s second-largest trading partner in Asia. India accounts for over 35 percent of Israel’s military exports. The India-Israel relationship has never been stronger and is expanding rapidly. Prime Minister Modi completed his second official visit to Israel in February and became the first Indian prime minister to address the Knesset. Members of the government and the opposition both greeted his speech with chants of “Modi-Modi.” During his visit, India and Israel announced their “Special Strategic Partnership for Peace, Innovation, and Prosperity” and inked 16 MoUs prioritizing security and technology collaboration.
His visit to Israel represents the growing fraternity between the world’s largest democracy and the only democracy in the Middle East, while Europe prevaricates. Modi at the Knesset pledged “India stood with (Israel in) full conviction at this moment and beyond.” Netanyahu hailed Modi “more than a friend, a brother,” and noted that amid a rise in anti-semitism, India stood out as a nation where the state never persecuted and only welcomed the Jews.
India and Italy are rapidly deepening their strategic partnership across the civil and military sectors. India, Israel, and Italy are major pillars of the promising India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, the culmination of which will elevate the US-India-Israel-Italy partnership to another level. A historic opportunity awaits Japan and India to complement this endeavour with an eastward expansion of their own—Japan-ASEAN-Australia-India Economic Corridor (JAAI).
The US-Israel alliance is buoyed and sustained by the ever-closer partnership between AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and evangelical Christian groups. This partnership has echoes in wider American and Israeli societies, offering unmatched ballast for resilient US-Israel relations, despite occasional dissonance between the two nations’ governments.
The US-Italy alliance arguably enjoys the deepest and richest cultural connection, forged through art, cuisine, and the Catholic faith, offering boundless sustenance for bilateral bonhomie. The political stability of the Meloni government enables Italy to pursue strategic initiatives to position itself as the leading partner for the United States, India, Japan, and Israel in the Mediterranean.
The United States and Japan shared an unparalleled bond across the Pacific Ocean, enriching the cultures and histories of both nations in fundamental ways. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his spiritual and political successor, Sanae Takaichi, embody Japan as the indispensable fulcrum of a free and open Indo-Pacific and as America’s unrivalled first partner of choice in the region.
The consequential US-India partnership, in contrast, lacks a commensurate cultural foundation to fortify the emerging alliance from episodic official dissonance. Official differences in US-India relations are likely to be par for the course given the size and varied special interests of the two nations. The Modi government’s ideological tenets mirror many Republican priorities, including a strong military, anti-terrorism measures, strong borders, election integrity, pride in cultural and spiritual history, scepticism towards China, and a commitment to a “Free and Open” Indo-Pacific. Patriotic conservatives in both nations should strive to comprehend and convey shared characteristics, histories, ideologies, perspectives, and policies to shape a cultural connection between American and Indian peoples, steering the 21st Century toward the mutual benefit of the free world’s largest democracies, economies, and militaries.
Ancient Roots and Modern Times
India is arguably the world’s most culturally diverse nation. It is the birthplace of several religions and sects, including Hinduism and Buddhism, and is home to all the world’s leading religions. Although Hindus made up the overwhelming portion of its population, for most of the 20th century, it was also home to the third-largest Muslim population in the world. However, Christianity and Judaism reached Indian shores long before Islam. Similarly, Buddhism emanated from India across Asia, reaching Central Asia, Mongolia, China, Korea, and Japan, prior to the advent of Islam in the region.
Saint Thomas the Apostle brought Christ’s message to India in the 1st century AD. Early Church theologians and commentators of the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, including Origen, Eusebius, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and St. Ambrose of Milan, wrote of St. Thomas’s sermons in India. In Chennai, Persian crosses with Syriac inscriptions dating back 1400 years adorn St. Thomas Mount. The disciples of Thomas, to this day, follow their own rites and rituals in celebrating their apostolic origins. Many Indian Christians hold Christianity proudly as an indigenous religion, one of the many great spiritual paths emanating from the subcontinent, rather than a colonial legacy.
Christian missionary activities greatly expanded across India during the Colonial period. English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch churches left an indelible mark across the land. With over 55,000 education institutions and 4000 hospitals and dispensaries, the Christian missionary imprint is inextricable from the Indian social fabric. Few Christian charities gained more world recognition than Mother Theresa’s succor to Calcutta’s impoverished and forgotten. Anglican and Jesuit schools are, in large measure, responsible for the spread of the English language in modern India.
Indian Jewish communities boast an older lineage still reinforced by periods of concentrated migrations. Trade between India and Israel extends back to the era of King Solomon in the 10th century BC. Later, refugees fleeing the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel in the 8th century reached India. The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD by the Romans further added to their ranks. The early waves settled in the western seaports along the Malabar Coast, in cities like Cochin, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Karachi. Consequently, they were colloquially referred to as “Cochin Jews” or “Bene Israel Jews.”
The early settlers assimilated into the local communities to such an extent that the next wave of Jewish refugees fleeing the Iberian Peninsula in the late 15th century was known as “Pardeshi” (“foreign”) Jews. The last major wave included the “Baghdadi Jews” fleeing Iraq, Syria, and Iran in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Sassoon family, often referred to as the “Rothschilds of the East,” moved from Baghdad to India in 1832. The Sassoons established one of the largest business enterprises across Asia, based in India, Hong Kong, and China, and later in London and the Middle East.
A large number of Indian Jewish families emigrated to Israel after 1948, but several remained. The historic Jewish quarter of Cochin persists to the present day. Jewish communities were deeply integrated into the business communities of the major entrepots of western India, from Karachi to Kochi, and left an indelible cultural imprint that is evident today. Their members served as the mayor of Bombay and in the legislative councils of Cochin and Calcutta. The omnipresent tune of All India Radio on transistors across the young nation was the work of Walter Kaufmann.
In the Third Indo-Pakistan War of 1970, which led to the foundation of Bangladesh, Lieutenant General J.F.R. Jacob, a descendant of a Jewish family that had emigrated from Baghdad, served as the victorious chief of staff of the Indian Army’s Eastern Command. Indian forces played an important role in liberating what would become Israel from the Ottoman Empire. During the Battle of Haifa during World War I, Major Dalpat Singh led the British-Indian Jodhpur Lancers in a victorious cavalry charge against Ottoman-German forces and was posthumously awarded the Military Cross. Modi was moved to visit the Haifa memorial for Indian soldiers—more than 4,000 of whom sacrificed their lives in the region.
Modi unabashedly prides himself on being born on the day India formally recognized the nation of Israel—September 17, 1950. He grew up in Gujarat in the company of the descendants of the early Bene Israel community. Jewish patrons established the best schools and a widely popular zoo near his hometown.
As chief minister of Gujarat, Modi acted on his younger vision to visit Israel in 2006, realizing that Israeli “per drop, more crop” methods could benefit Indian agriculture. He followed that up by becoming the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel in 2017, ushering in a new era of Indo-Israel ties in defense, technology, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and more. The Indo-Israel partnership has continued to deepen and expand over Modi’s more than a dozen-year premiership. Further fastening of the ever-stronger partnership is expected during Modi’s visit to Israel later in February.
Modi is also arguably the most pro-American prime minister to lead India and established a strong relationship with Trump during the latter’s first term, and is on course to deepen the partnership during his second administration. The recent resolution of the trade negotiations has put the deepening partnership back on the right track.
The national interests of the United States, India, Japan, Israel, and Italy are converging, abetted by their respective domestic and international political concerns. The five nations share strategic friends and foes alike and enjoy reinforcing regional interests. Greater engagement and investment across conservative civil societies of the five nations will support, sustain, and advance the US-India-Japan-Israel-Italy alignment.
Cultural and national affinity between India and Israel, and between their citizenry, offer a natural foundation for greater solidarity among the conservative nationalism of the two nations. India, as an ancient civilization, is singular in its record of no notable episodes of anti-semitism. The growing convergence of the two nations and peoples is persistently tempered by shared experience and threat of Islamic terrorism, as recent as the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel and the April 22, 2025, attacks in India.
The Indian diaspora in the United States, the most affluent among ethnic groups, has much to learn from its Jewish counterparts in terms of organization and impact. The groups behind organized antisemitic activities and influence in the United States in the wake of the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel may pose a similar threat to Indian-American communities. It is in the interests of the Indian and Israeli American communities to better buttress and coordinate against shared threats in the future.
Importantly, the Indian diaspora sympathetic to Hindu nationalism should learn from its Israeli brethren to make common cause with American Christian coalitions and cement conservative solidarity among nationalists in the United States, Israel, and India—the last resting place of St. Thomas the Apostle.
Comprehension, Courtesy, and Restraint between US and Indian Conservatism
US and Indian conservative movements enjoy a more evolved affinity and appreciation for their Israeli counterparts than they do for each other. Both American and Indian conservatives need to exercise greater understanding, courtesy, and restraint in deepening their natural partnership.
Modi is engaged in a generational effort to institutionalize the equitable, uniform application of laws and regulations to all religions and sects across India. An important element of this effort is to enforce strong border measures to stem illegal migration from the two bordering Muslim nations—Pakistan and Bangladesh. This also entails responsible voter registration requirements in border states to ensure electoral integrity.
Indian conservative nationalism, in all its complexities, is best understood and approached at the sub-national or state government level. Indian states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Assam, to name a few, offer a rich prism for observing laboratories of democracy—warts and all. Improved engagement among US-India conservative groups at the state level is a foundational building block for stronger alignment at the federal level. Groups from states with strong Indian communities in the US should lead the way, including Texas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi.
The United States already boasts the world’s largest operating Hindu Temple in New Jersey. That sect alone boasts having over 1,000 temples across the 50 states and counting. The growing public outreach, community support, and social service footprint of these temples range from free medical and tech clinics to support of local Boy Scouts, firefighters, and police organizations. These social activities will collectively better integrate and ingratiate the Hindu temple with local communities.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS): India’s Untold Story
The impact of one of the world’s largest and most influential national civil society organizations—India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—is perhaps one of the great untold stories of Indian history. The RSS (literally translated as the “National Self-Service Society”) boasts a formidable grassroots organization dedicated to individual self-realization, civic service, and the constant moral betterment of its members. Father Anthony Elenjimittam, a noted Jesuit priest in India, praised it in his seminal book on organization as a disciplined and deeply patriotic movement rooted in service, unity, and India’s cultural resurgence.
RSS embodies the ethos of “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” The society purports to strengthen national unity by focusing on civic duty, family, conservation, and the nation, among other values. It often serves as the “first responders” for natural disasters across the subcontinent. Though purportedly secular, its operation and its teachings draw heavily from the Hindu way of life—Hindutva. Hindutva’s omnipresence in RSS workings, coupled with unmatched organizational discipline, often courts controversy in India’s political discourse. The RSS originated in India’s deeply complex political history of the early twentieth century, when Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders of Indian Independence engaged in politics of compromise and concessions to assuage the Muslim minority to stay within the fold of the united struggle for independence and prevent (unsuccessfully) the later partition of the country.
In totality, RSS has arguably done far more good than harm for Indian society, including inspiring its members to engage and become responsible contributors to politics, labor unions, environmental conservation, education, hospitals, and many other public endeavors. Its members are asked to dedicate an hour a day to better their societies and neighborhoods. It represents the sort of national service schemes advocated by the likes of General Stanley McChrystal and others, intended to instill civic duty, national unity, and professional development among American youth and citizens.
RSS, not surprisingly, with over 70,000 neighborhood units (shakhas) and over 4 million members across India, represents the most committed, disciplined, and impactful vote facilitation organization in the world, often to the great benefit of the BJP. Modi and several other BJP leaders’ commitment to public service was honed as life members of RSS.
A Faith, Family, and Nation Coalition
Conservative nationalists in the United States, Italy, Israel, India, and Japan will stand stronger together. They can play a vital role in strengthening their shared beliefs in faith, family, and nation and advancing their collective interests. One way to foster greater appreciation and synergies may be to host an annual “Faith, Family, and Nation Forum” to be convened in turn across the five nations. A regular annual gathering, hosted sequentially in Washington, DC, New Delhi, Rome, Jerusalem, and Tokyo, would foster greater understanding and a formidable network among conservative activists.
Center-right nationalists are in the ascendancy in all five countries because their message and actions are more attuned to the aspirations and concerns of their respective citizens. The shared characteristics and concerns of Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Shinto nationalism call for greater cultural solidarity.
The national interests of the United States, India, Israel, Italy, and Japan constitute a critical allied bridge across the Indo-Pacific and Mediterranean-Atlantic theatres, of critical importance to all five nations. The time is now to weave these threads into a resilient, resolute fabric that bolsters the shared beliefs and interests of the five nations and their peoples.
About the Authors: Kaush Arha and James Jay Carafano
Kaush Arha is president of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Forum and a senior fellow at the Institute for Diplomacy, Security and Innovation at Pepperdine University and the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University. During the first Trump administration, Dr. Arha was the architect of the Japan-US Strategic Energy Partnership and Japan-US Strategic Digital Economy Partnership as interagency bilateral coordinating forums and an influential actor in the biannual US-Japan Free and Open Indo-Pacific Dialogue.
James Jay Carafano is senior counselor to the president and EW Richardson fellow at the Heritage Foundation. A leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, Carafano previously served as the vice president of Heritage’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.