The Indian Air Force (IAF) today has to deter a two-front threat but is doing so with insufficient resources. The force is supposed to have 42 combat squadrons but is around 31 and its fleet of aircraft is aging rapidly. In the coming years the Jaguars, MiG-29s, and even the Mirage 2000s will have to be replaced but doing so is going to be challenging given the constraints faced international and domestic aircraft producers. Internationally, all major aircraft producers have a lengthy backlog that needs to be filled making it difficult to meet new orders in a timely manner. Domestically, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has been unable to meet the requirements of the IAF. Worse, the country’s arms acquisition process is lengthy and cumbersome and even if deals were expeditiously signed, it will be years before new fighters enter squadron service. The question is what can and should be done to reverse these trends?

Production Delays

Faced by a two-front threat the IAF is now talking of eventually acquiring 60 squadrons of combat aircraft but even getting back to 42 squadrons will not be easy. The reasons for this are the problem with continuing delays in domestic production and the existing commitments foreign fighter manufacturers have. Lockheed Martin has existing orders to sell 167 F-16s around the world and in 2024 it delivered 16 aircraft to its customers. Put simply, even if India was to sign a deal in 2025 for F-16s it would be the early 2030s before the first planes came. France’s Dassault Aviation delivered 21 Rafale in 2024 of which 14 went to the French military and 7 were exports (incidentally this was up from the 13 delivered in 2023). With a backlog of 200 aircraft to deliver, it would mean another eight to ten years before a delivery could be made to a new customer. These delays are taking places because of the problems created for supply chains by Covid, though these are slowly getting sorted out, and because aircraft have become so technologically complex that manufacturing them is a time-consuming process.

Worse, India’s domestic manufacture of the Tejas has been met with sanctions, production delays, quality control problems, and production inefficiencies. Consequently, the first Tejas was delivered in 2016 and by 2025 Hindustan Aeronautics Limited had yet to complete the original order of 40 aircraft. This made a mockery of the claim that HAL could make eight aircraft a year and eventually ramp up annual production to sixteen planes. At the same time, both Pakistan and China are acquiring fifth generation aircraft with Beijing likely to acquire sixth generation fighters possibly by the end of the decade.

The government should tell HAL if it does not deliver sixteen aircraft as it has promised it will be heavily penalized. These airplanes can be used as part of a high-low mix in that they could provide the numbers and be kept in a secondary role. After the frontline fighter-Rafales and Sukhois had done the initial damage they could be used to carry out secondary missions.

The other way to salvage the Tejas is to mate it with India’s new range of missiles—particularly the Brahmos NG and Astra as well as any air to ground ordnance that has been indigenously produced. That way the aircraft becomes a “missile truck” that can deliver missiles and ordnance from beyond visual range and complicate the mission of the enemy.

Fighter Aircraft Options

Operation Sindoor revealed that India would have to spend to counter both China and Pakistan’s aircraft procurements. Pakistan is claiming that by the end of 2025 the PAF will get the J-35 stealth fighter which is a true fifth generation fighter. It is unlikely, however, to get the aircraft in meaningful numbers to make a difference to the balance of forces with India.  Both the Chinese Air Force and Navy have an urgent need to induct these aircraft in significant numbers and, as a consequence, want to rapidly induct modern weaponry into their force structures.

As things stand, the PLAAF still has over 300 J-7 and J-8 legacy fighters while the rest of the fleet is a mix of more modern fifth generation J-20s (300 plus) as well as over 1,000 variants of the Su-27 and the Su-30. Replacing the legacy fighters with the advanced J-35s will take several years to complete so at best the PAF gets a few J-35s to familiarize itself with the plane and deliveries will begin much later.

The other question is whether Pakistan can even afford the aircraft in sizeable numbers. China, despite claims to the contrary, charges Pakistan for the aircraft it sells although the planes are sold at a “friendship price” to the PAF. The JF-17, for example, was initially priced at around $35 million but was sold to the PAF at the “friendship price” of $26 million.  Its fleet of 36 J-10 were reportedly bought in a $1.4 billion deal that also included 250 PL-15 missiles. The PAF, therefore, will get more fighters but it is unlikely that Beijing will fast track them given its own pressing needs.

At the same time, India should expect the PLAAF to rapidly modernize its air fleet and missile force. For India, therefore, the need is to be proactive and buy more fighters while planning for a sixth-generation plane. Achieving this will require several reforms in the acquisition process.

First, the government has to stop long negotiations, constant price haggling, and shrinking the purchase, as was the case with the original Rafale deal which was reduced because of price pressures from 126 to 36 aircraft, because this will create problems in a worsening threat environment.

Second, any purchase should be in large enough numbers to significantly boost the IAF’s capabilities.  The Chinese were dismissive of the purchase of 36 Rafales saying it would make very little difference along the long India-China border and that far more aircraft would be needed to ensure air superiority for the IAF. On the other hand, 126 Rafale would have been a significant force multiplier for the IAF. Similarly, against Pakistan, air superiority means a numerical ratio of 2:1 in favor of the attacker and India right now does not have capability.

The longer you wait to sign a deal the longer it takes to acquire the aircraft. It also makes sense to indigenously produce the Meteor missile since in the future that will be the main weapon of the Rafale. Swedish Gripen, too, employs the Meteor effectively.

Sixth generation fighter aircraft are likely to take to the skies in the late 2030s to early 2040s and will be qualitatively different from their predecessors. To not invest in this capability is shortsighted because China has already built two sixth-generation aircraft, the J-36 and the J-50 and recently released photos of a third plane. The United States has a sixth-generation program, Britain has partnered with Japan for one, France has a joint program with Germany and Spain, and South Korea is also designing a futuristic aircraft. Turkey already has ongoing program called KAAN.  India, therefore, needs a fifth and sixth generation fighter project to complement the MRFA acquisitions.

There are three options for the fifth-generation aircraft and none of them look particularly enticing for the IAF.  Earlier this year Donald Trump said, “Starting this year, we will be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. We are also paving the way to ultimately  (emphasis added) provide India with the F35, Stealth fighters…”  The Indian media did not understand what Trump was saying and mistakenly concluded that the United States had offered the F-35 to India.  Government officials and military officials similarly played into the misunderstanding to make it look like the India-US relationship was strong and that New Delhi had options in weapons procurement.

In actual fact was Trump was saying was that India would buy military equipment from the United States and eventually, probably a decade down the line, purchase the F-35. Fact is that Lockheed already has orders pending for over 3,500 aircraft from the US military, NATO allies, Japan, and Israel. All these countries will get precedence over India which will not be moved to the front of the queue to acquire aircraft.  Lockheed is aiming to produce 170-190 aircraft in 2025  which is impressive but even at such high production rates it would be close to 2040 before India saw its first F-35s.

AMCA or Su-57?

It is typical of India’s weapons procurement culture to both seek to develop an indigenously produced AMCA and to most likely procure one from abroad. AMCA would work if there are realistic parameters attached to the design and production of the aircraft. The decision to work with Safran on an engine is a good one since the French are reliable partners and will give HAL an engine that satisfies the requirements of the AMCA.

For AMCA the government needs to tell HAL that instead of making grandiose plans it should say what it can actually produce, when can it deliver those planes, and how many will be produced annually? That would be moving away from the Indian production culture of technological failures and exaggerated claims.

Further it makes little sense to build the AMCA using two engines, the American F-414 and the French Safran. An aircraft is built around an engine, so changing engines which have different performance parameters only adds delays to the program. So eliminate the F-414 and work solely with the Safran since it is the powerplant that will eventually be used to power the aircraft.

Further, the IAF needs to stop asking for increasingly complicated and time-consuming additions, as it did on Tejas, and instead pursue what the Chinese call the “dumpling strategy” of arms production. The Chinese argue that much in the way the first batch of dumplings is never of the best quality because the water has not reached the proper boiling point, the first weapons produced in the series are not of the quality or performance level that the customer requires. The logic is that by the time the third or fourth batch of tanks, aircraft, or destroyers are made the weapons system will have reached the desirable quality and then the earlier versions will go back to the factory to be modernized to the requisite standard.

Additionally, one lesson learnt from recent wars is that smart missiles matter. This goes against the ethos of air forces who are still obsessing over fighter jets that can engage in air-to-air combat. But in the new era of warfare precision guided missiles fired from beyond visual range are carrying out military missions effectively while not endangering pilots.

With this in mind, make the AMCA into a missile truck with a good radar and the ability to carry large and heavy missiles like the Brahmos. Also ensure that the plane can be directed by an AWACS so that they can initially direct the missiles without having them turn on their active seekers and become visible to enemy aircraft.

A production run of two or three hundred AMCAs would give the IAF the capability to fight a two-front war but to do so the planes have to come off the factory floor in significant numbers.

Su-57

The IAF walked out of the Su-57 program because the Russians were inflexible about design changes and the IAF felt that it was not a true fifth-generation fighter. Moreover, the Russians were unwilling to give India the source code which would have given the country the open architecture to further develop the aircraft’s systems. Now, the Russians are aggressively marketing the aircraft and India has a shortage of combat squadrons.

The complete source code access has been offered to India and, “eclipses anything previously granted by Western suppliers.” Such access would allow India to integrate domestically developed systems, like its Indian-manufactured mission computer and indigenous weapons platforms like the Astra MK-1 and MK-2 beyond-visual-range missiles, Rudram anti-radiation missiles, and precision-guided air-to-ground weapons.

The Russians are also offering the Ohotnik stealth drones which have the ability to deliver ordnance and thus can serve as a complement to the manned air force. The Su-57 pilot can direct them from his cockpit and use them as a force multiplier. The Russians are promising relatively speedy delivery by supplying up to 30 Su-57 by 2030 as an off-the -shelf buy and then begin license production in the early 2030s. Such a deal would provide the insurance of boosting squadron numbers and having a backup in case the AMCA is delayed as most analysts expect it to be.

Despite the IAF’s reservations, the government may be pushed into buying the aircraft since India cannot purchase planes from Turkey, or the United States for political and logistical reasons.

The Missile Shortage

Globally there are shortages of both aircraft and missiles. In 2024, the USA manufactured 550 Patriot missiles and in 2025 is raising production to 650. This is insufficient to cover the needs of Israel, Ukraine, the United States, and the NATO allies.  Given that two Patriots have to be fired at an incoming missile that would mean the stockpile would be exhausted fairly rapidly.

In a future war India may face a similar problem with its stockpile of Brahmos, S-400, Scalp, Meteor, and Akaash missiles which would be exhausted fairly quickly. The Pakistanis will have learnt their lessons from Sindoor and will go to their suppliers, China and Turkey, to get more drones and missiles to complicate the Indian air defense environment. India, therefore, must rapidly expand its domestic production of missiles and buy sufficient missiles from Russia, France, and Israel to have a large enough stockpile.  although all three nations have their own military needs to fulfill.

Drones and Missiles

The last part of the modernization effort includes the domestic manufacture of drones and missiles. India now has sufficient domestically manufactured tactical drones which were able to wreak havoc on Pakistani forward positions but what are needed are Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drones like the Iranian Shaheds that the Russians are now building in large numbers and using over the skies of Ukraine.

The Russian Ohotnik is a more advanced drone, like the US made MQ9 Reaper, but both are relatively expensive machines. The Ohotniks are priced in the $5 million range while the Reapers are in the $30 million range (which is not a good deal given that the Houthis were able to shoot down 22 Reapers. This was an embarrassment to the American armed forces and India cannot afford such high-cost weapons which are easy to bring down. The cheaper Iranian Shaheds can carry ordnance and were able to attack Israel which is a thousand kilometers from Iran. To shoot them down, the Israelis and Americans used far more expensive ordnance like the $500,000 AIM-9x Sidewinders to shoot down the Shaheds which are valued between $20,000 to $40,000 per unit.

As far as missiles are concerned, it is important to remember that most of the guided missiles in the Indian arsenal are very expensive and have to be used sparingly. Missiles like the Brahmos, Meteor, and Scalp cost a lot of money and of necessity have to be used for high value targets. Unlike Israel, which has a generous benefactor in the United States no country will provide India with such largesse at subsidized prices.  New Delhi, therefore, needs to build up a stockpile of its own indigenously produced weapons that are affordable and can be procured in large numbers.

Two cost effective systems are the Nirbhay cruise missile and the Pralay surface to surface missile.  While not as advanced as the Brahmos or the Scalp, the great advantage of these systems is that they can complicate the defensive calculations of Pakistan. The Pakistanis will have to counter by firing weapons from their own arsenal and provides India with several advantages. Launching missiles at cheaper systems depletes the Pakistani arsenal. Further, the cost of anti-missiles will also be a major burden on the Pakistani exchequer which will have to buy these systems in large numbers to counter the Indian threat.

In procuring drones there are two options for the IAF: first, it should ask private industry to develop a system indigenously; and secondly, find an external partner to work with to quickly bring a drone of that capability and price range into service. In this context, an international partner like Brazil or South Africa may be one for India to jointly develop drones with.

In conclusion, the IAF now faces a two-front air threat which will need to be countered with new aircraft and a surplus of missiles. Such a development of the force cannot be done overnight given global supply constraints so India has to act promptly and be willing to spend the needed resources to acquire the needed systems. Now is not the time to be penny wise and pound foolish but to buy what the IAF needs.