A comprehensive security assessment released by the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) has issued a stark warning regarding the evolving unmanned aerial threat facing New Delhi.
The think tank underscores that in the event of a future high-intensity, multi-front war involving all three branches of the armed forces, Indian military infrastructure could be subjected to an unprecedented influx of unmanned platforms.
According to the research brief, India needs to prepare for highly coordinated, persistent onslaughts comprising 1,500 to 2,000 or more drones on a daily basis.
Driven by advances in autonomous systems, loitering munitions, and swarm technologies, these waves would likely originate from both China and Pakistan.
Experts note that this marks a monumental shift in contemporary combat economics, where an influx of inexpensive, unmanned hardware can effectively exhaust conventional air defence networks and saturate localized operational zones.
Assessing Adversary Capabilities
The analytical brief meticulously evaluates the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the unmanned assets possessed by regional adversaries.China maintains a vast and sophisticated inventory of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), ranging from long-endurance reconnaissance-strike platforms to advanced autonomous swarming networks.
Concurrently, Pakistan has rapidly expanded its own operational fleet, focusing heavily on tactical reconnaissance systems and one-way "kamikaze" loitering munitions.
Strategic analysts warn that a collusive, simultaneous two-front confrontation would see these capabilities deployed systematically.
Instead of isolated operations, these assets would be utilized for continuous Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), precise strikes on forward-deployed personnel, disruption of supply lines, and saturation bombardments targeting critical military assets such as airfields, command hubs, and mechanized formations.
The Economics of Air Defence
A primary concern raised by the CLAWS study is how the massive volume of incoming targets would stress existing layered defensive frameworks.Cheap, readily available First-Person View (FPV) drones and explosive-laden swarms create a severe economic asymmetry for defenders.
Intercepting thousands of low-cost aerial targets daily using multi-million-dollar surface-to-air missiles is financially and logistically unsustainable, threatening to rapidly deplete national interceptor stockpiles.
Global lessons from recent geopolitical conflicts—such as the heavy reliance on low-cost FPV drones in the Russia-Ukraine war and localized swarm tactics in West Asia—confirm that uncrewed systems are transitioning from simple "eyes in the sky" into primary offensive assets.
Multi-Domain Impact and Psychological Warfare
The study indicates that future drone deployment will seamlessly span land, air, and maritime arenas.Networked swarms are expected to simultaneously target Indian Army mechanized columns, Indian Air Force (IAF) operating bases, and Indian Navy assets patrolling the Indian Ocean Region.
Beyond physical destruction, the think tank highlights the psychological dimensions of large-scale drone warfare.
Constant, high-volume drone presence is designed to induce severe cognitive pressure on personnel, degrade real-time situational awareness, and compromise frontline command structures, ultimately forcing defensive forces into a strictly reactive state.
Urgent Need for Enhanced Counter-Drone Capabilities
To counter this projected scale of warfare, the paper asserts that India must fundamentally overhaul its force structuring, prioritising Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD), Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS), electronic warfare (EW), and directed-energy mechanisms.The CLAWS brief recommends the immediate implementation of a multi-tiered anti-drone architecture, emphasizing the following key areas:
- Layered Interception: The deployment of mixed defensive screens combining kinetic options with non-kinetic systems like high-power microwaves (HPM), laser technologies, and targeted electronic jamming.
- Domestic Mass Production: Accelerated indigenous manufacturing of inexpensive counter-drone platforms and specialised technologies capable of neutralizing coordinated swarms.
- Inter-Service Synergy: Enhanced operational integration between the Army, Navy, and Air Force to enable rapid, cross-service target cueing and engagement data sharing.
- AI-Enabled Command Structures: Heavy investment in artificial intelligence-driven battle management command and control (BMC2) systems to process and counter high-volume data threats efficiently.
Current operational capacities and existing stockpiles remain optimized for localized threats and may prove inadequate against the massive, industrial-scale drone swarms projected in future multi-front scenarios.
