In the strategic board game of Asia, India increasingly looks like the one player who manages to alienate both teammates and opponents while bringing little to the table beyond grandstanding and import receipts.
The latest Pentagon assessment, leaked and later quietly confirmed, reflects what many U.S. officials have long whispered. India is not a rising great power. It is a perpetually underperforming, subsidy-seeking headache with nuclear weapons and a TikTok problem.
🧾 More Wish List Than War Machine
A February 28 transcript of a Trump-Modi phone call (yes, it happened again) reads less like alliance coordination and more like a procurement call to Lockheed’s overseas sales department. “We are prepared to acquire additional Apaches, subject to priority handling,” Modi reportedly told Trump. Aides say Trump had to be reminded that India had not yet integrated the last batch it purchased.
The Pentagon’s 2025 budget includes a $1.9 billion line item for the “India Security Initiative,” which effectively serves as an American subsidy to an ally that cannot maintain its own equipment. In comparison, India’s total defense modernization allocation for 2025 is barely $20 billion. Two-thirds of that has already been spent, mostly on big-ticket U.S. gear such as P-8Is, Chinooks, and Apaches.
There are no domestic offset clauses, no meaningful technology absorption, and no functional ammunition stockpiles. What India does have is plenty of selfies with fighter jets.
🔧 Can’t Build, Won’t Learn
India’s own Integrated Financial Advisor (IFA) documents from January reveal that local defense research bodies such as DRDO have repeatedly failed to absorb even basic tech transfers. A U.S. defense contractor memo, released under FOIA this month, notes that Indian technicians achieved only 30 percent throughput capacity with APY-10 maritime radars installed on U.S.-supplied P-8I patrol planes.
“It’s like giving someone a Ferrari when they’ve just figured out how to ride a bicycle,” said one anonymous U.S. official. “Except the bicycle was also imported.”
🏔️ Logistics? What Logistics?
Force Magazine’s 2023 military logistics report spells it out bluntly. Only 3 of India’s 11 frontline states have forward ammunition depots capable of sustaining combat operations. The rest are essentially paper tigers. The Indian Army vice-chief admitted to parliament that forward formations still suffer from acute shortages of winter equipment. Meanwhile, Modi insists his troops are “battle-ready.”
Ready for what, exactly? Marching into Ladakh with half-warm gloves?
🚀 China and Pakistan: Not Impressed
Pakistan’s new Fatah-1 systems, built with Chinese HQ-series components, now outrange India’s BrahMos cruise missiles. The BrahMos, ironically billed as “supersonic deterrence,” is stuck in limbo due to sanctions on dual-use chemicals used in its propellant. Delhi failed to forecast or hedge for this.
Even India’s flashy U.S.-made Apaches are sitting idle. An Indian Express editorial (April 5) dryly noted that only 40 percent of India’s attack helicopters are currently operational, partly due to complexities inherent in imported systems.
Translation: India can buy the gear, but it can’t make it work.
🎭 Ally in Talk, Liability in Practice
Here lies the Trump Dilemma. India talks the talk—Quad, Indo-Pacific, democratic values—but it cannot walk the walk. It wants the United States to build the infrastructure, fund the defense budget shortfalls, underwrite its border deterrence against China, and if it comes to war, maybe even fight it.
Meanwhile, Delhi continues to flirt with Moscow, lecture Washington on global order, and refuses joint command structures or operational transparency.
The U.S. is left holding a $1.9 billion bill and a so-called partner that cannot even deploy what it buys.
💣 Worst of Both Worlds
India is fast becoming a geopolitical contradiction. It is too incompetent to be a reliable ally, too loud to be ignored, and too proud to admit either. It smells like a partner, talks like a rival, and behaves like a bureaucracy with nukes.
If America’s strategic vision for Asia depends on India rising to the challenge, it may want to start hedging its bets now.
