Chandigarh: The ongoing visit to New Delhi by the US under secretary of defence for policy Elbridge Colby – marked by his public dismissal of the “rules-based international order” as a “gauzy abstraction” – is, somewhat remarkably, being projected in official circles as a reset in India-US ties.Speaking at the Ananta Centre in New Delhi on Tuesday (March 24), Colby framed Indo-Pacific stability as rooted in “strength” and “hard-nosed collaboration” between Delhi and Washington, echoing the shift in tone under President Donald Trump towards transactional realism. The US official also emphasised that the bilateral relationship between the two sides would be guided by ‘hard-headed, clear-eyed recognition of overlapping interests’ and a ‘results-oriented mindset in foreign policy, rather than on dusty formalities and unchallengeable shibboleths’.In reality, however, Colby’s declarations amounted to little more than a reiteration of familiar – and largely hollow – promises that have defined Indo-US bilateral defence engagement for nearly two decades. Stripped of rhetoric, his message follows a familiar script: ambitious announcements that rarely translate into meaningful outcomes, followed by iterations of a similar ilk.Rather, it reflects a longstanding pattern characterised by an ever-expanding, ambitious accumulation of elaborate acronyms representing defence initiatives like DTTI, iCET, INDUS-X, SoSA and RDPA, with each one billed as transformative, but none of which have so far delivered anything tangibly strategic or of significant operational value to the Indian military.Intended as a grand ecosystem of dialogue, complex frameworks and pilot projects promising the co-development and co-production of assorted materiel over the years, these programmes have rarely – if at all – translated into deliverables of any consequence. Instead, they have all devolved into a cycle of repeated announcements and intense bureaucratic activity – much like Colby’s visit – that preserves the appearance of partnership without delivering progress.The earliest of these, the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI), launched in 2012, was intended to move the US-India defence relationship beyond a transactional buyer-seller dynamic toward joint development of advanced military technologies. In practice, however, DTTI became mired in bureaucratic inertia and mutual suspicion.DTTIs four early ‘pathfinder’ projects – ranging from Mobile Electric Hybrid Power Systems to protective gear against chemical and biological threats – made limited progress, while others, such as Raven unmanned aerial vehicles and roll-on/roll-off intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance modules for the Indian Air Force’s 12 Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 transport aircraft, were withdrawn following lukewarm domestic industry response.Subsequent additions, like digital helmet displays and biological detection systems, too failed to move beyond preliminary discussions.Additionally, the DTTI included at least seven working groups to jointly develop and manufacture jet engines and an aircraft carrier. Other ‘open-ended’ DTTI categories, involving Indian service officers, to jointly pursue defence projects to mutually benefit both countries, too, were instituted, but met infrequently and accomplished little or nothing, before lapsing into oblivion.More ambitious proposals in 2016, such as the Advanced Tactical Ground Combat Vehicle and participation in the US Future Vertical Lift programme, collapsed due to misalignment with India’s analogous indigenous projects and differing priorities on both sides. Even the designation of India as a ‘major defence partner’ and the creation and re-creation of multiple joint working groups did little to revive DTTI momentum.Military and defence industry officials said DTTI languished and eventually perished due to enduring shortcomings by the respective entities responsible for furthering it. This included vacillation in decision-making by the Ministry of Defence and ‘unilateralism’ by the US under secretary of defence for acquisition, technology and logistics, in patronisingly offering Delhi low-grade technologies.Thereafter, the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), unveiled in 2023, sought to inject new momentum into the partnership by focusing on critical emerging technologies in defence, space and next-generation telecommunications, including 6G networks. Artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor know-how, in addition to other vital sundry areas of engineering, science and biotechnology, were also included.Yet, despite its expansive scope, iCET has struggled to move beyond announcements and working groups. Regulatory asymmetries – particularly US export control regimes and India’s own protectionist tendencies – continue to impede meaningful technology transfer, and what remains is a framework rich in ambition but poor in execution.Similarly, INDUS-X, or the India-US Defence Acceleration Ecosystem, was conceived as a bridge between the two countries’ defence start-up communities, aiming to foster innovation and private-sector collaboration. While it generated some enthusiasm within select industry circles, its impact has been limited by structural constraints: differing procurement systems, lack of sustained funding pipelines and the absence of a clear pathway from innovation to induction. The result is an initiative that showcases potential, but has delivered little operational capability to India’s armed forces.Alongside, the Strategic Operational and Support Agreement (SoSA), often presented as a mechanism to deepen logistical and industrial defence cooperation, suffered a similar fate. Though designed to streamline support arrangements and enhance interoperability, its practical utility remained constrained by procedural complexities and a lack of institutional follow-through; it ended up merely adding to the architecture of cooperation, but without materially altering its effectiveness.Furthermore, the Reciprocal Defence Procurement Agreement (RDPA) has been under discussion since October 2023, as a means to integrate the respective defence industrial bases by allowing reciprocal access to procurement markets. Yet, it too remains unrealised, stalled by concerns in Delhi over market access, sovereignty and the impact on the domestic defence industry. It also underscores the limits of convergence between two partners whose economic and strategic priorities remain misaligned and wholly uncoordinated.Overlaying all these initiatives is the broader framework of the “major defence partnership” designation, under which India was seemingly accorded a unique status, one intended to facilitate technology sharing and defence trade. In theory, this marked a shift toward a more equal and collaborative relationship, but in reality, it has done and achieved little to dismantle the structural barriers that have long constrained mutual cooperation. Export controls persist, US technology transfers remain tightly circumscribed and co-production efforts are frequently delayed or diluted, or at times even both.And, even where progress has been made – such as in expanded and increasingly sophisticated military exercises like Exercise Malabar and Yudh Abhyas – it has largely occurred outside the formal frameworks meant to anchor the bilateral defence partnership.This disconnect between architecture and outcome is perhaps the most telling feature of India-US defence cooperation: the alphabet soup of initiatives continues to grow in scale and complexity, but its ability to produce concrete, high-end industrial or technological outcomes remains sharply limited. Simply put, it merely reinforces a pattern where optics outpace substance.However, Colby’s recent emphasis in Delhi on “interests-based” cooperation – particularly in areas such as maritime domain awareness, long-range precision fires, resilient logistics, anti-submarine warfare and advanced technologies – merely echoes a well-established pattern, as does his assertion that the US supports India’s ambition to expand its indigenous defence industry.Yet, much like earlier formulations, these assurances risk remaining declaratory, with little conviction that they will somehow overcome the structural constraints that have consistently impeded meaningful delivery.“Regulatory barriers, bureaucratic inertia and differences in procurement systems are real challenges,” Colby conceded, even as he insisted they were “not insurmountable”. Yet a cross-section of defence industry officials in Delhi and Bengaluru privately viewed his visit less as a turning point than as a reminder of an enduring paradox: that the India-US defence industrial relationship remains over-institutionalised and under-performing – an imbalance that was now becoming even harder to obscure even at the level of optics.“It [this relationship] is rich in mechanisms but poor in results; expansive in vision but constrained in execution,” said one senior military aviation official, declining to be named. The proliferation of initiatives – DTTI, iCET, INDUS-X, SoSA and RDPA – has created the appearance of momentum without generating commensurate outcomes, he added, noting that even these outward signs of progress now appear to be dissipating in light of under-delivery.Furthermore, recent acerbic exchanges between Washington and Delhi further illustrated the fragility of this partnership in the military sector. Earlier this month, US deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau warned at the officially sponsored Raisina Dialogue in Delhi that the US would not repeat its past “mistakes” with China in its dealings with India – a remark that drew a pointed response from external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, who emphasised that a nation’s rise is ultimately self-determined.The “mistakes” Landau referred to were decades of US policy that facilitated China’s economic and technological ascent – granting it broad access to Western markets, capital and advanced technologies, under the assumption that integration would moderate its behaviour. Instead, Washington now was of the view that it had, mistakenly, enabled the rise of a strategic competitor capable of challenging US primacy across multiple domains, especially in defence and AI.Ultimately, the challenge lies not in a lack of ideas or intent, but in the persistence of structural impediments and lack of clarity over outcomes that neither side has been willing – or able – to overcome. Until these are addressed, the Indo-US defence industrial partnership will remain trapped in a state of suspended potential – perpetually promising, yet fundamentally unfulfilled.