Prime Minister Narendra Modi got the timing for the Japan trip wrong. Modi could have achieved more from his trip in terms of strategic clarity had he waited for the dust to settle down in the US. Take a look at the timeline of Indo-Japan relations. It is uncanny how Tokyo has always followed Washington’s footsteps in mending ties with India. Therefore, it is inconceivable for Japan to take new initiatives with India till it gets an idea which way the wind is blowing across the Potomac River in Washington. As a result, Modi came away with nothing new. The Indo-Japan nuclear deal is the mother lodestar of his Japan yatra. And Modi has conceded strategic ground by allowing Japan to sneak in a nullification clause. The previous UPA government could not consummate the deal because it had resisted precisely such a move. In all its civil nuclear agreements, it had scrupulously guarded against any such conditionality entering those agreements.  The resistance to the nullification clause was based on past experience. The US and all its close allies had suspended sensitive trade in military after India tested nuclear weapons in 1998. This left India in the lurch as all defence collaboration with the West had come to a grinding halt.For the first time since the end of World War II, Japan is on the horns of a dilemma. US President-elect Donald Trump has questioned the underwriting of Japan’s security without commensurate returns. The aggressively anti-China government of Shinzo Abe has already reached out to Russia.  In case, Trump decides to dilute the US military umbrella over Japan, Shinzo Abe would have to throw more sweeteners to the Kremlin. If Modi had delayed his visit, the Japanese would have been more generous in enlisting India as a hedge against China.  The Japanese chose to overlook Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s rather intemperate observations on the use of nuclear weapons. India could not consummate a defence deal for amphibious planes and collaboration in rare earths. Without the nuclear deal, the trip would have been a wasted opportunity for Modi.