How is India Integrating Drones in its War-Fighting?

5 Mins read

Contemporary warfare is being increasingly revolutionized by the rise of drones as potent systems being integrated into military arsenals. Drones are quickly becoming lucrative because of their cost-effectiveness, their ability to substitute costly larger tactical systems. This is because of their petite stature that facilitates easier use and creates space for defense innovation. New Delhi is looking to lead the way in drone integration into its military architecture by 2030. These goals have particularly gained momentum after recent conflict with Pakistan.

India’s race towards unmanned technologies has been an elaborate and extensive process characterized by efforts towards both qualitative and quantitative enhancements in India’s drone inventories. Alongside autonomous technology, New Delhi is also conducting drone employment training and joint exercises to bolster their military effectiveness. While they had previously been employing drone in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance roles, the 2025 Pakistan-India conflict was the first instance of drone use in a combat context. This indicated that unmanned platforms are becoming increasingly central to New Delhi’s defense-related requirements and its transition to multi-domain warfare model.

The Indian military is operationally prepared to employ drones for a diverse range of roles and purposes. New Delhi is already slated to procure the MQ-9B Predator drones from Washington. More recently, the Indian firm Larsen & Toubro and the U.S.-based General Atomics have also agreed to co-produce Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drones. In the event the collaboration materializes, it could be a major breakthrough for New Delhi since it has long struggled to organically produce MALE systems. With defense trade being an essential facet of the U.S-India strategic partnership, the developments in India’s drone eco-system can offer insights into India’s emerging operational needs, and market opportunities for U.S-based firms.

In this view, this article dissects New Delhi’s pathway toward modernizing its indigenous drone ecosystem, following a three–pronged route, beginning with stepping up the production and procurement of drones. Following this, New Delhi is also conducting trainings and exercises to operationalize the use of drones for military purposes. Simultaneously, New Delhi is also moving towards a doctrinal recalibration where the first arm of the rapidly transforming drone ecosystem in India relates to drone production and procurement. While the country’s public sector is primarily responsible for defense-related production, the Indian government, however, is actively taking steps to encourage private sector producers to develop their drone production capabilities. New Delhi has introduced initiatives such as the Production-Linked Incentive (commonly known as the Drone Scheme) that launched in 2020, and the Drones Rules which was introduced in 2021. Together, these initiatives aimed at simplifying regulatory frameworks for drone production for both civilian and military purposes

In the immediate aftermath of the recent Four Day Conflict between India and Pakistan, New Delhi’s attention toward drone production has particularly intensified. New Delhi announced their allocation of $234 million to invest in a Drone Incentive Program. It is seeking to incentivize the production of not just drones, but also drone components, software, and counter-drone technologies. Furthermore, New Delhi has also relaxed and uniformized the goods and services tax (GST) on drone production from the earlier GST of 18% to 28% to 5%. According to New Delhi, the purpose of these efforts is to develop drone manufacturing into a stable, predictable, and affordable industry. In addition to this, India’s indigenous drone production aims to cater to a very wide and diverse range of drones from nano quadcopters to medium-altitude Intelligence Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms and kamikaze/First Person View systems. New Delhi hopes to emerge as a competitive and capable drone producer.

It is worth noting that the indigenous drone production in India faces significant challenges with access to raw materials and technology. New Delhi has remained excessively reliant on China for its drone production. In 2023, citing national security concerns, New Delhi banned the use of Chinese components in military drones, which further complicated India’s supply chains. Secondly, despite government-led announcements of supportive policies, there is a lack of clarity over the Indian military’s procurement plans, operational requirements, and acquisition timelines. This lack of clarity impedes production since private manufacturers require stable and predictable procurement plans before committing to large-scale investment and production.

The second prong of the transformation of India’s drone ecosystem pertains to the operational side, where the Indian military is seeking to institutionalize drones. This shift has been most evident in the Indian Army. While arming its infantry battalions with drone platoons for both ISR and combat purposes, the Indian army’s force structure appears to be moving towards a wide range of smaller drones per corps. This is aimed at converting the battlefield into a sensor-rich, loitering-enabled, and strike-rich domain. By doing so, New Delhi may be looking forward to reconfigure battle space in its favor via improved situational awareness and precision striking. Also, the employment of unmanned aerial vehicles may also allow New Delhi to off-set the operational gap resulting from its shortage of combat air squadrons.

Furthermore, the Indian Army has also initiated training to position drones as a regular component of military activity. New goals have been made to establish nineteen drone training centers cross India by January 2026. This is to reinforce the idea that technological training is an essential component of the curriculum for all army ranks. Also, in June 2025, India’s Border Security Force opened its first-ever drone warfare school at its training academy in Madhya Pradesh. It can be noted that an inherent downside of employing drone technology by border security forces in highly securitized environments can be potentially destabilizing the environment. This is due to the possibility of inadvertent airspace violations, misattributions, or wrong detections. The Indian Air Force, on the other hand, has been already using Medium Altitude Long Endurance tactical drones, however, exclusively for ISR purposes. With the impending procurement of MQ-9B class platforms, the Indian Air Force may also move toward long-range strike capabilities.

The Indian Navy, on the other hand, primarily operates naval drones for maritime domain awareness. While the procurement of MQ-9B Sea Guardians is expected to offer the Indian under-water strike capabilities, more specifically anti-submarine warfare capabilities, such underwater capabilities are easier in theory, than in practice. This is mainly due to the congested, dynamic, and challenging nature of the underwater domain. As for now, while the recent conflicts depict the declining relevance of land-centric forces against aerial and naval forces, the Indian Army’s lead in operationalizing drones could also be an attempt to maintain its relevance.

Together, India’s drone production and procurement, coupled with the operationalization of drones for military purposes is indicative of New Delhi’s bid to usher in a doctrinal-level transformation. This is the final part of India’s drone modernization drive. The Indian military appears to be envisaging an integrated, network-centric and inter-service future of warfare. The goal is to bolster strategic deterrence, and to achieve operational superiority through network means rather than platform means. This is envisioned to be done by wiring and mastering kill chains by converging diverse datalinks and fast cueing. However, the bid to engage in multi-domain operations can be severely curtailed by fact that New Delhi has been unable to devise a unified, joint unmanned systems doctrine. While there are apparent prospects of large-scale drone procurements left, right, and center, more needs to be done for forging capability-centric inter–operable operations to continue to be challenged by fragmented command and controls. Consequently, the ability to wire and master kill chains by converging diverse datalinks and fast cueing remains challenging.

To continue to encourage interoperability, in October 2025, the Indian military also conducted a tri-service military drill, named the “Cold Start” exercise. Named after India’s Cold Start doctrine; the drill aimed at testing India’s drone and counter-drone capabilities for improving India’s air defenses. The derivatives of any such exercise shall rely on defining clear strategic and tactical objectives, mechanisms to forge interoperability, logistical availability, technological integration, and effective evaluation mechanisms.

Either way, the elaborate integration of drones into warfare is nevertheless poised to complicate the strategic realities of South Asia, possibly pushing towards lowered thresholds of confrontation, regional arms race, and speedy military innovation.

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