Author : Pratnashree Basu

Published on:  Jan 31, 2026

Japan’s Official Security Assistance (OSA) framework is quickly becoming a key pillar of Tokyo’s evolving security diplomacy. Launched in April 2023, the OSA marks a deliberate departure from the development-only confines of the traditional Official Development Assistance (ODA) by allowing the provision of defence equipment and related security-enhancing transfers. OSA allocations, viewed through the lenses of strategy, geography, capability impact, and regional political economy, must be contextualised against a rapidly shifting architecture of security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.

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