The Indian military is on a long and arduous journey to modernise its capabilities and force structure. Under its new direction, the Indian Ministry of Defence, in all three services is pivoting away from traditional methods of human surveillance and toward autonomous systems across all domains.

However autonomous and semi-autonomous platforms are not the only driving factor, as localised production and sourcing under India’s flagship “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” initiative as well as wider insights gained from contemporary international conflicts are also driving the agenda.

While New Delhi frames it as a framework and calculus to establish native supply chains, it isn’t about autarkic backsliding into a pre globalisation paradigm of limited capability. In a pragmatic world of complex value and supply chains, the shift represents a transition from exclusively importing to structured, multi-tiered domestic production. Furthermore, India’s own operational lessons from past conflicts and skirmishes including Operation Sindoor and the hostilities with Pakistan in May 2025 which have been absorbed into the guiding principles.

Largely beginning with the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, despite existing for decades before, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)s signalled a special strategic and tactical importance in modern warfare. Similarly, due to the effective employment of sem-autonomous unmanned naval surface craft by Ukraine against the Russian Navy, this has elevated what was once seen mainly as a surveillance and Search And Rescue (SAR) tool to a strike role against capital warships.

According to a report by DW, the cornerstone of this structural change is going to be a large procurement order to the tune of $2bn. While the amount is noteworthy, the suppliers being exclusively India’s own private defence firms including Adani Group (NSE:ADANIENT), Tata Advanced Systems, and Larsen & Toubro (NSE:LT), the timelines are also reportedly relatively short, spanning around 18 to 24 months.

While India’s state owned defence structure including Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (NSE:HAL) have their own armed UAV designs, and some have even passed trial, none have received large procurement orders with any plans for induction into the inventories and arsenals of any of India’s defence forces as of June 2026.

The three main categories of unmanned vehicles that are likely to be part of the $2bn order are likely to be, High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE), Long Range Maritime Patrol (LRMP), Electronic Warfare (EW) suite platforms especially in a companion configuration aimed at operating in conjunction with a manned multirole fighter aircraft and its pilot, and loitering munitions especially those intended for Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD).

India has also pursued procurement of foreign origin platforms such as Israel’s IAI industries's series of Heron UAVs procured between 2000-2016, and the US General Atomic’s MQ9 between 2020-2026.

The US supplied MQ9 platforms have been a capability boost with their high endurance and combat radius, as well as the ability to be fitted out for modular mission profiles ranging from surveillance over vast swathes of ocean, to strike any surface cruising maritime or land based threats.

These contracts for foreign origin platforms have cost over $10bn in the past 26 years. However, as things shift into a decisively indigenous direction for procurement, India is looking for greater utility for a fraction of the price. This would include leveraging the economies of scale and not having to pay a premium for foreign Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) profit margins, currency exchange rate related costs, as well as much more scalable and available after sales support, as well as overhauls and retirement costs over the system and platform’s life cycle.

However, these expectations and specifications are not easily fulfilled as the consistent pattern of underinvestment in Research and Development (R&D) by both state owned entities and the private sector has been the proverbial achilles heel of India’s defence industrial complex.

Even when a programme which has produced a solid product for a replacement or upgrade of a capability away from a foreign vendor, India’s procurement agencies have repeatedly changed the specifications and demanded constant iterative changes without paying for the now inflated costs owing to these value additions.

This approach of shifting goalposts and in some cases even using defence procurement as a tool to court favour with geopolitical partners such as the US and Russia, has inevitably downgraded capability as a second priority over relationship building.

While this approach has its own merits, the negatives when weighed against the fundamental goal of developing its own defence industrial base, leaves New Delhi few options but to continue dependence on historical suppliers and partners as a strategic necessity.

Nevertheless, the awareness that future military conflicts will involve highly sophisticated, yet fast produced and equally fast depleted stockpiles of cheap, disposable unmanned platforms with an attrition rate in the hundreds of thousands in a given month is resonating with New Delhi and its strategic planners just as soundly as those in any other consequential state with a military.

However, the delicate dance of balancing, ambition, autonomy, and technology and diplomacy with budgetary concerns may be what makes or breaks India’s push for unmanned systems in all domains.