I know we can't learn anything from the Americans because we have 5,000 years of history behind us while they have only 200-plus, but the current state of civil-military relations in India is damaging enough that a few lessons might be worth drawing from the latter. The distrust has reached such a level that routine troop movements cause severe discomfort among elected leaders and bureaucrats, who oversee the armed forces. The most recent revelation followed other unseemly developments involving the army and the political leadership, making a real dialogue urgent and necessary.