'Need leapfrogging to win wars': Air Marshal pushes for self-reliance in defence; calls progress 'painfully slow'

NEW DELHI: Deputy Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Awadhesh Kumar Bharti on Tuesday said India urgently needs faster indigenisation in the defence sector.

He also warned that progress from concept to operationalisation is "painfully slow" and said the nation should focus more on producing equipment, technology, and products domestically rather than relying on imports.

Speaking at the Aero Tech India 2025 event in New Delhi, he said India must achieve “leapfrogging” in critical technologies to secure strategic autonomy. “To win future wars, there is no doubt that indigenisation is the way ahead. Our global partners may not always be able to share niche and critical technology with us. What we need is leapfrogging, which largely will have to be done on our own,” he said.

Air Marshal Bharti said India requires advanced capabilities in areas like secure chips, communication systems, hypersonics, aircraft, and space assets. He stressed that research and development should be accelerated to quickly convert ideas into deployed technology. “Indigenisation is the key to our future capabilities; considerable work is going on, there is no doubt. However, the progress from conceptualisation to operationalisation is painfully slow, and that is our pain point. And to be able to achieve this accelerated pace of innovation in the country, research and development, environment and infrastructure have to see a revolution,” he said.

He also explained that the nature of warfare is changing, ranging from low-cost unmanned systems to advanced high-tech platforms powered by artificial intelligence.

“Once the kinetic action starts, future conflicts will be fought at the entire end of the spectrum. And when I say entire end of the spectrum, it is not only that they will be high tech, tanks, aircraft or ships. It will be fought even at the lower end with low-tech, low-capital solutions. So at one extreme would be low-cost mass saturation, characterised by usage of drones and other unmanned systems. The other extreme would be high-cost equipment, niche technologies, precise with a large weight of attack, characterised by the usage of sixth-generation technologies. Future warfare will be about collaboration between humans and machines, robots and autonomous systems integrated with AI would be fighting side by side with humans,” the Air Marshal said.

Air Vice Marshal Anil Golani praised the Indian Air Force’s role in Operation Sindoor and highlighted the need for innovation in next-generation missiles and combat aircraft. He said the Tejas programme alone is expected to create around 12,000 jobs each year for the next six years with support from 115 suppliers, and predicted that MSMEs in the defence sector could grow to 16,000 by 2030.