By Manohar Thyagaraj

When Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in India to meet with External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on June 24 in the next edition of the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue, one thing that will not be in short supply from either side will be soaring rhetoric of good sense.

Although virtually every nice and positive thing that can be said about the relationship has been said before, it will not hinder Kerry or Khurshid from repeating those lofty talking points again. Common values, shared interests, the ‘defining partnership’ of the 21st Century and so on. Despite legitimate trade, investment and security concerns challenging the bonds of the two strategic partners, Kerry and Khurshid will emphasize that the overall bilateral relationship, born of good sense, has never been in better shape.

Secretary Kerry even put out a very upbeat video ‘message to India’ on YouTube as a prelude to his trip. Yet, in a country where the personal computer density is 30-per-1000 people and the number of Internet users-per-100 people is 5, one could legitimately wonder how many people will get to see that video. The video is destined to be seen mostly by the Indian intelligentsia, not the masses. And this perhaps is the perfect metaphor for the state of the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue: high level declarations of intent that do not translate well to the working levels.

At the top, communication between the senior leadership on both sides is very good. But, once you get past that, the real engine of any bilateral relationship — the mid-levels of the bureaucracies — do not communicate consistently well yet.

For instance, on the economic side of the ledger, which is expected to dominate next week’s discussions, it is an accepted mantra that a strong and growing India is in the US interest. A group of members of Congress have even written to the White House suggesting that the United States support India’s membership in APEC.

Yet, trade dialogue is dominated by squabbles over minutiae like the sale of pet food and milk products, and India’s concerns about U.S. immigration restrictions for skilled labor. These differences will not be easily papered over.

The defense and security side of the ledger is arguably doing better, though serious differences do exist on Afghanistan. At a time when the first Indian P-8I and C-17 have arrived within a few weeks of each other, on time and budget, that the United States is quietly working to dispel the notion of being an ‘unreliable’ defense partner for India has never been clearer.

Further, the Defense Trade Initiative (DTI) aims to reform the United States’ own internal processes on technology release where India is concerned so as to make even deeper collaboration on defense technology, such as co-production and joint development, possible — something India has wanted all along.

A leading Indian publication recently called the DTI something India has to ‘sign onto’. It is not. It offers India a forum, and the choice, to raise the issues on U.S. export controls it has always found trenchant. But, people in India who should know about the DTI do not, and a frequent refrain is ‘nothing has changed’.

So, two questions beg to be asked: what is truly ‘strategic’ about the U.S.-India relationship? And, when the relationship and communication effectively exists at two levels, can it be functionally ‘strategic’?

If the only objective that can be agreed upon is that a strong India will help the United States, and vice versa, that predicts a sea of tactical disagreements that take time to work through. The end goal, a rational partnership between the two countries that boosts each others’ economic and security interests is clear. How to get from point A to point B is not.

A large part of this lack of communication is a paucity of ‘strategic messaging’ from the United States in India. For instance, absent from the lead up to this year’s Strategic Dialogue are op-eds by senior U.S. leadership in Indian print, which still has far wider reach than social media. The Russians do it, the French do it. Even the Chinese do it. Vibrant, noisy, yes, but the media in India is still a public space where ideas can be debated.

Without such messaging, many actions the United States takes or announces with India are prone to misrepresentation. Even including areas of disagreement, the U.S. attitude toward India as a strategic partner has changed irrevocably in the last decade. Not enough people in India know about it. The United States has under-performed at ‘selling’ itself publicly in India.

Perhaps the U.S.-India relationship is one where reality will always lag expectations. Messaging will not magically solve the riddles of partnership. But, it might help shorten the time to turn strategic good sense into acceptable strategic congruence.

Mr. Manohar Thyagaraj is a Visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation. An initial version of this post appeared on the ORF website here.