This paper seeks to make a case for the utility of drone warfare in securing India’s national interests. It begins by establishing how drone proliferation acts as a threat and opportunity in the context of India’s security objectives and discusses the importance of drone warfare capacity building in countering the security threats faced by India. It then highlights the benefits and areas of operation where the Indian military could use drone warfare to achieve its objectives from ISR and Dull, Dirty and Dangerous’ missions to counter-terrorism and logistics.

… India must become the bulwark of an alternative Asian and international security system … in this context India’s continental threat gravitates on the defensive construct of ‘not ceding an inch of territory,’ and limited-depth offensives. This goes against the very fundamental doctrinal premises of the employment of offensive air power followed by all Air Forces ...

On 11 March 2021, China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, endorsed a plan to build a ‘super dam’ on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in southeastern Tibet. According to Chinese media reports, the dam will have an installed capacity of around 60 Gigawatt (GW), the world’s largest, and will be built at The Great Bend section of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Nyingchi Prefecture’s Medog County close to the Indian border.

… cyber weapons will be used individually and blended simultaneously with conventional kinetic weapons as force multipliers … for both attacker and defender, it is difficult to predict; cyber weapons often achieve things other than their intended purpose … strategic calculation for attackers thus becomes considerably more complex ... over-reliance by strategists and scholars on such imprecise terminology has significant risks for misinterpretation and premature prescription ...