The US-India relationship is witnessing upheavals and drama like few others. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to India could not have come at a more opportune time. While Elon Musk’s comments and volatile tariff blows have captured headlines and strained bilateral ties, defence and technology cooperation — driven by a shared imperative to counter China — has quietly anchored the India-US partnership. Even though delays plague the delivery of recent historic agreements — such as co-producing US jet engines in India and deploying multi-billion-dollar armed US drones — the underlying integration is solid and advancing. To further strengthen their partnership, both capitals should confront the anxieties that hinder deeper integration.AdvertisementWashington worries that New Delhi is hesitant to compete with China beyond its land border, resisting commitments to crucial maritime corridors like the South China Sea. Conversely, New Delhi fears that the recent Trump-Xi summit could lead to a grand “G2” bargain over India’s head, an anxiety fuelled by the US renaming Indo-Pacific Command back to Pacific Command. These concerns, however, are friction points, not dead ends. As US Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby recently noted, defence cooperation between India and the US requires neither a formal treaty nor total alignment. By ditching “gauzy abstractions” for hard-nosed realism, both countries can bypass disagreements. New Delhi and Washington should accept that India will maintain its relationship with Russia, just as the US will navigate its partnership with Pakistan. By compartmentalising these friction points, both capitals can advance their broader, forward-looking alignment. Building on this baseline, India and the US should take six steps.First, they should strengthen deterrence through a reciprocal presence. India should do more in the Pacific to support US leadership, building on recent Indian headway such as the Eastern Fleet’s forward deployments to Southeast Asia and coordinated patrols in the Philippine Sea. In tandem, the US should do more in the Indian Ocean to backstop New Delhi, increasing its naval presence, conducting joint patrols, and expanding access to regional logistics nodes. Together, they should operationalise existing logistics pacts, scale India’s capacity to serve as a primary maintenance hub for forward-deployed US naval assets, and establish joint deep-sea sensor networks across strategic chokepoints.Also Read | The UN must recover Dag Hammarskjöld’s sense of purposeSecond, they should institutionalise joint military coordination to manage high-tech friction points. Doing so requires implementing secure communications and geospatial intelligence pacts to shift from ceremonial military exercises to real-time tactical data streaming. This operational baseline should be matched by a joint framework to defend critical energy grids and satellite networks against cyberattacks. Cooperation should expand to a Joint Space Defence Command to co-develop small military satellites.AdvertisementThird, they should explore reciprocal defence procurement pathways to better align Indian private firms with global defence acquisition loops under the Make in India initiative. Joint ventures, such as the domestic assembly of long-range drones and the co-production of jet engines, should serve as the baseline for future co-development of precision strike munitions and autonomous systems. Simultaneously, expanding venture capital pipelines under their defence acceleration ecosystem should commercialise dual-use startup innovations before they get bottlenecked in traditional military procurement.Fourth, they should secure technological and resource supply chains to improve military readiness. By joining the US-led Pax Silica coalition, New Delhi should fortify its regulatory ecosystem to accelerate its domestic Semiconductor Mission, while Washington streamlines export controls to enable predictable transfers of trusted AI infrastructure. Both capitals should execute their Bilateral Critical Minerals Framework, pairing public-private capital to build secure rare earth elements and lithium refining hubs while cutting through commercial and market-access barriers that frustrate private industry.Fifth, they should anchor their partnership within mini-lateral networks to scale security dividends across the theatre. The bilateral relationship should breathe life into frameworks like the Quad — alongside Japan and Australia — and expand operational formats with regional partners like the Philippines. By integrating their bilateral logistics and surveillance capabilities into these broader groupings, both capitals can transition from talk to collective theatre defence.you may likeFinally, New Delhi and Washington should leverage their powerful global diaspora and invest in cultivating a next-generation constituency to sustain bilateral ties. By funding dedicated bilateral fellowships and supporting cross-regional exchanges that include Indo-Pacific counterparts, both capitals can build a networked vanguard. These efforts should be anchored by expanded economic and commercial engagement, including streamlining professional mobility to provide a commercial foundation for the broader alliance.The India-US partnership does not need to be frictionless to be formidable. By abandoning outdated expectations and leaning into a pragmatic, interest-driven alignment, both countries can construct a durable framework that is mutually beneficial and vital to a stable Indo-Pacific.The writer is president and CEO of Pacific Forum, based in Honolulu, Hawaii