President Joe Biden’s trip to India for the G20 summit has sparked renewed speculation about an alliance between the two countries. But the United States would be wise to manage expectations. India can be the ally that America needs, but New Delhi is unlikely to be the ally that Washington wants.

Ties between the two countries have been growing for years, predicated in large part on a shared concern over a rising China . For the last two decades, U.S. administrations of both political parties have cultivated better relations with India. And for the most part, it has been a rare bipartisan success .

India and the U.S. have steadily increased defense cooperation, including in the all-important technological realm. In January 2023, Washington and New Delhi announced the Indo-U.S. cooperation in Emerging Technologies, which affirmed that the U.S. would share high-end tech with India. Other efforts have been launched, including the India-U.S. Defense Acceleration Ecosystem, which aims to "strengthen ties between our defense industrial ecosystems to make them more innovative, accessible and resilient," according to the Pentagon. India will also become a "hub for the maintenance and repair of forward-deployed U.S. Navy assets and other aircraft and vessels," according to a recent White House statement.

Both countries have conducted military drills together around the Line of Actual Control, which borders China and has been a decadeslong source of conflict between Beijing and New Delhi. In 2020, India and the U.S., along with Japan and Australia, reinvigorated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue as part of Washington’s strategy in the Indo-Pacific. And India’s military is making contingency plans in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, according to a recent Bloomberg report . New Delhi is doing so at Washington’s request.

This is remarkable progress considering that defense ties between the two nations only date back to 2005 and there isn’t a formal security alliance between them. But the U.S. must be realistic about its new friend. When it comes to India, this has never been easy. Indeed, the relationship has been characterized by unmet expectations.

During India’s struggle for independence from Great Britain, many Indian leaders hoped that the U.S. would be more supportive. Similarly, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt often felt they weren’t fully prioritizing the fight against the Japanese. The Cold War only added to the sense of shared disappointment. The U.S. was let down when India led the Non-Aligned Movement, which, while nominally neutral, was actually pro-Soviet. American support for India’s nemesis, Pakistan, deepened the divide.

The fall of the Soviet Union offered an opportunity to recalibrate. During the war on terror, the U.S. found India to be a more supportive and reliable ally than Pakistan . China’s military buildup and bellicosity have contributed to the upward trajectory in relations. That said, Washington would be mistaken if it thinks that a formal security alliance is in the cards. India has traditionally focused on internal development and has eschewed such alliances. Polls have consistently shown a deep skepticism toward participation in structures akin to NATO, and to possibly entangling commitments. As the scholar Daniel Markey has noted , "India will never aspire to that sort of alliance."

For decades, American leaders have cultivated India by noting that both countries are democracies and have a shared heritage as former vestiges of the British empire. But the U.S. should see India for what it is: a rising power with its own interests and concerns, many of which are shared, some of which are not. The key to building a successful U.S.-India relationship is realism, not projection.

Sean Durns is a Washington D.C.-based foreign affairs analyst.