President Barack Obama's sojourn in India on his recent trip to Asia demonstrated the strong vision guiding the bilateral relationship but also the relative absence of process propelling it forward. While a public diplomatic success that heralded closer strategic collaboration between the United States and India, Obama's visit saw little in the way of improving the "nuts and bolts" of the relationship. It coincided with a vigorous debate in Washington on whether--and to what degree--India will play a helpful role in the United States' strategic future. Although much still hinges on India's ability to articulate its own regional and global objectives and identify a means of achieving them, the Obama administration must nevertheless build on the visit's successes and establish a mechanism for incrementally facilitating India's rise in line with American interests. Dhruva Jaishankar explains that creating an unprecedented formal defense partnership could be a suitably ambitious first step.

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