The problem of India - US relationship is really a cultural one.
Whatever their faults - Americans are a fast moving, highly pragmatic, result-orientated culture.
Indians are too slow moving, and not a pragmatic culture. Its a more talk, than action culture.
You cant just blame the hopelessly old incompetent beaurocrats for this. It lies in the mentality of people and the culture itself.
By the time Indian leaders decide to take a decision, (even if they are convinced its in their interest to do so) - it takes so many years that the "moment of opportunity" will have passed. This cycle is repeated time and again.
As an example: by the time the IAF inducts the MMRCA aircraft - most developed countries would have moved on to the 5 or 6 gen aircraft. by then the MMRCA aircraft will be 2 or more generations behind the state-of-art. Its not just in military.....its every facet.
It doesn't help that the average age of senior Indian politicians is about 60 plus years.
These old men who run Indian politics at the senior level simply dont have the energy to run a country with all the problems that India faces. Unless you get a whole new political class that is younger, cleaner, smarter, and better educated - nothing will change drastically in India. Unfortunately for India - these old men and their families are too firmly entrenched and its not easy to replace them.
I see India falling even further behind countries like China, and even Brazil surpassing India as a global power.
I really hope I am wrong on this