American diplomacy makes it a point to envelop arms deals with rhetoric couched in the idiom of ‘shared values’ – even when the US wraps up highly lucrative multi-billion dollar deals with countries such as Saudi Arabia. Thus, it comes as no surprise that in an address at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York on Friday, entitled ‘America’s Growing Security Network in the Asia-Pacific’, Carter endeavoured to habitate the upcoming “exciting new projects” with India within an proposed regional security architecture under US leadership.