The next drone war on India's borders will not be decided by who possess the smartest missile battery. It will be decided by who can deploy, move, repair, and replace unmanned systems on prolonged conflict spanning over weeks. In the recent ongoing wars, from Russia-Ukraine to the US-Iran confrontation have positioned drones from niche enablers into weapon of choice of military power, exposing a critical truth: wars are sustained by industrial depth, short repair cycles, war reserves, and robust supply chains that do not collapse during the first week of attrition. A drone that cannot be recharged in the cold, repaired after a rough landing, or replaced after attrition is not a sustainable combat system, rather a fleeting demonstration.
India has been moving fast in the unmanned sector. Drone startups are multiplying, the Services have expanded procurement, and government platforms like iDEX have helped build a vibrant defence technology ecosystem. By mid-2024, the Armed Forces had commissioned an estimated 2,000-2,500 drones into operational use. Further backed by USD $361-421 million in drone investments. Policy frameworks like Mission Drone Shakti and Mission Sudarshan Chakra, are deliberate and well-defined. Yet the next challenge is not attaining the ability of just making drones. It is keeping them in action during high-intensity conflict across India's diverse geography and terrains, from the sub-zero altitudes of Ladakh to the harsh marine-environment along the coastlines of the Indian Ocean.
This paper, drawing on lessons from the Nagorno-Karabakh war, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the recent Operation Epic Fury, argues that India's greatest vulnerability lies in logistics and sustainment rather than in innovation. Batteries, semiconductors, critical minerals, repair cycles, distributed manufacturing, and war reserves will increasingly determine operational outcomes. We have learnt that Iran's ability to sustain drone campaigns for weeks, even after 92% of its known launch infrastructure was destroyed was not geography or luck. It was the result of a deliberate pre-positioning doctrine. India must tailor-make this lesson to fit the Indian scenarios with equivalent urgency.
The report sets out five structural reforms: scaling up and distributing low-cost drone production; standardising drone technologies and integrating dedicated drone units within existing command structures; developing a robust counter-swarm strategy; building a micro-drone swarm capability for offensive and defensive roles; and advancing next-generation counter-drone methods beyond conventional hard-kill and soft-kill approaches. India has already ignited the innovation cycle. The defining question is no longer whether India can build drones - it is whether India can sustain them when the war refuses to end early.
