Despite the fanfare of headlines and exuberant television debates surrounding the recent renewal of the ten-year US-India Defence Framework Agreement, the sobering reality is that this accord merely reiterates a pact first signed in 2005 and extended in 2015 – neither of which produced outcomes of lasting significance.In essence, each successive Defence Framework Agreement has pledged transformative co-development and technology transfer but delivered little beyond rhetoric.Initiatives like the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI), launched in 2012, and the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), started a decade later under the two earlier frameworks, were intended to move the India–US strategic and military partnership beyond arms sales towards genuine defence-industrial co-development and technology transfer.But both schemes failed miserably in achieving any of these objectives.Against this backdrop, the latest renewal of the Defence Framework Agreement, inked by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his U.S. counterpart Pete Hegseth on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur on October 31, risks becoming yet another well-intentioned reaffirmation of partnership, wrapped in fresh rhetoric yet still devoid of the substance of genuine technological collaboration or co-production.Senior Indian security and defence industry officials conceded that the framework needed to be ‘seriously assessed’ by New Delhi – not on intent or the volume of announcements, but on its ability to confront and resolve four recurring fault lines that have long endured: misaligned procurement systems, rigid US export-control regimes, persistent gaps in India’s industrial and regulatory mechanisms, and, above all, a weak implementation framework.“Unless these structural issues are addressed head-on, this renewed framework risks repeating the pattern of high-visibility proclamations followed by limited or token implementation over the next decade,” said a senior industry official in Bangalore.“We have seen a series of defence frameworks with the US come and go over the past two decades. But without structural reform concerning technology sharing and equipment and platform co-development, these agreements will remain little more than diplomatic statements,” he said, declining to be named. If these systemic bottlenecks are not suitably resolved, we risk another decade of promising paperwork but no progress, he warned.The experience of initiatives like the DTTI, followed by the iCET, underscores how entrenched bureaucratic and regulatory barriers on either side have stymied real progress between India and the US in materiel co-development and production.Both programmes were conceived as mechanisms to turn Delhi and Washington’s bilateral strategic intent into industrial collaboration, yet their eventual outcome revealed that bureaucratic caution, restrictive technology-transfer regimes and mismatched industrial expectations had effectively blunted their potential.Also read: India-US Defence Ties are Hostage to Trade Deals and TariffsLaunched with great fanfare in Delhi by then US Deputy Defence Secretary Ashton Carter in 2012, following four years of negotiations, the DTTI was aimed at furthering defence co-operation between the two newly emergent strategic allies, shorn of bureaucratic hiccups.Initially, the DTTI included four joint ‘pathfinder’ projects: development of Mobile Electric Hybrid Power Systems (MEHPS), Integrated Protection Ensemble Increment-2 clothing for protection against chemical and biological exposure, AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven hand-launched unmanned aerial vehicles, and roll-on/roll-off intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) modules for the Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) 11 Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 transport aircraft.While these were intended to serve as quick, low-risk demonstrations of industrial co-operation between U.S. firms and India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Defence Public Sector Units, none reached the prototype or production stage and, by 2019-20, all had faded away.In June 2015, India and the US extended their ten-year bilateral Defence Framework Agreement to mid-2025, not only to ostensibly further strategic and military ties but also to provide the framework for progressing the DTTI and its supposed ‘transformative’ potential.Consequently, a year later, in mid-2016, the DTTI added the Digital Helmet Mounted Display and the Joint Biological Tactical Detection System projects to its list, but these prospective endeavours progressed little beyond the discussion stage.Later that same year, in November 2016, the US proposed the joint development of an Advanced Tactical Ground Combat Vehicle (ATGCV) and a family of helicopters under the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) programme. At the time, the US had proposed the involvement of Israel in the ATGCV programme, with the end product being employed by the armies of all three countries involved in its development and manufacture.But these proposals too came to nought, as they clashed with India’s indigenous Future Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV) programme – which has also failed to progress. The FVL scheme was likewise dropped, as India’s indigenous helicopter development was continuing apace and it was unwilling to brook outside involvement in this project.Meanwhile, in December 2016, the US designated India its ‘major defence partner’ and committed itself to furthering military technology transfers, facilitating weapons interoperability and advancing mutual security interests, intelligence sharing and increased joint military exercises.Soon after, the DTTI was expanded to include at least seven working groups to jointly develop and manufacture jet engines, assorted naval, air and ISR systems, and an aircraft carrier of over 65,000 tonnes under the Joint Working Group on Aircraft Carrier Technology Co-operation (JWGACTC). Once again, other than a few meetings and reciprocal visits by military delegations, nothing transpired, and all projects lapsed.Also read: Seven Years On, India Now Backs a Defence Pact Between the US and MaldivesMilitary and defence industry sources in Delhi associated with the DTTI said it had languished and eventually perished due to enduring shortcomings by the respective entities responsible for furthering it. These included vacillation in decision-making by India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) and ‘unilateralism’ by the US. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics in patronisingly offering Delhi low-grade defence technologies.“The lack of progress in the DTTI was in inverse proportion to the exponential manner in which bilateral strategic and defence ties between New Delhi and Washington were advancing under the Obama and earlier Trump administrations,” said a senior military officer involved at the time in negotiations to further the Initiative. “There was a major gap between the two sides that needed bridging, but it eventually proved unresolvable and the entire edifice collapsed upon itself,” he added, refusing to be identified.Subsequently, the iCET emerged in May 2022 on the ashes of the DTTI, identifying six broad areas of co-operation involving co-development and co-production in critical emerging technologies in defence, space and next-generation telecommunications – including 6G networks, artificial intelligence and semiconductor know-how. Additionally, other areas of engineering, science and biotechnology were incorporated into the iCET.But over the past three years, the iCET has achieved little of substantive or material significance; it has generated momentum, meetings and mechanisms but produced no hardware, co-developed no technologies, and entered into no co-production programmes. Much like the DTTI, its achievements so far remain in process rather than in outcome.“The recent history of Indo-US collaboration in critical hi-tech areas is identified by an alphabet soup of acronyms like DTTI and iCET, in which the former undeniably flopped and the latter is well on its way to following suit,” said a veteran one-star Indian Army (IA) officer previously involved in extended, albeit unsuccessful, negotiations with Raytheon–Lockheed Martin over transferring technology to India to locally build its FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) some years ago. This breakdown resulted in India acquiring Spike ATGMs and launchers from Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems instead of the US.Declining to be identified, he claimed that, unlike India, US defence manufacturers operated independently and were not obligated to transfer technology developed at immense cost merely at their government’s behest. Besides, the US has strict export-control laws, subtly managed and controlled by its powerful defence industrial complex and leveraged by the State Department, which would not be easily – if at all – relaxed, he stated. “Under the circumstances, the best that India can hope for under iCET is merely assembling US military kit and, for form’s sake, displaying jointness by incorporating peripheral components built locally,” the officer added.Meanwhile, the aforementioned industry official in Bangalore said that, for all the fanfare surrounding its launch, iCET has so far delivered more architecture than achievement. It has broadened the conversation around critical and emerging technologies but is yet to translate this into industrial collaboration or tangible capability gains, he declared. Moreover, he added that the current state of turbulent diplomatic, trade and commercial ties between Delhi and Washington is further muddying matters, threatening iCET’s furtherance.In conclusion, last week’s renewal of the ten-year India-US Defence Framework offers continuity, not change – extending a partnership long on declarations but short on delivery. Unless practical lessons are drawn from two decades of unfulfilled frameworks and shortcomings addressed, this latest renewal too could end up as yet another neatly worded reaffirmation of intent rather than a blueprint for change.Without clear timelines or tangible technology-sharing commitments, this projected partnership between Delhi and Washington risks becoming another buyer-seller arrangement that has netted the US over $22 billion in materiel sales to India over the past two decades. Unless both sides create firm delivery systems and relax export controls, all talk of joint materiel production will remain rhetorical, and the framework will yet again serve as an umbrella for one-sided military purchases.