India’s airpower challenge is no longer simply a question of acquiring more fighter aircraft. It is a question of whether the country can build, sustain, and regenerate a high-tech combat-air ecosystem quickly enough to meet the demands of a possible two-front contingency involving China and Pakistan. 

The Indian Air Force (IAF) is currently operating with approximately 29 fighter squadrons against a sanctioned strength of about 42, a shortfall that affects deterrence, air-defence coverage, strike capacity, and the force’s ability to absorb losses in a prolonged conflict.

This report argues that India should treat the squadron shortfall as a national industrial-readiness problem, not merely a procurement delay. The solution lies in combining faster TEJAS production, a credible indigenous engine strategy, deeper private-sector participation, AI-enabled maintenance, and a resilient networked air-power architecture. Together, these measures can convert India’s defence-manufacturing base from a source of individual platforms into a strategic surge capacity for the IAF.

The Strategic Problem


The IAF’s authorised fighter-squadron strength has long been benchmarked at 42 squadrons, a level associated with meeting the requirements of a two-front war. Current estimates place the service at around 29 squadrons, or roughly 560 aircraft, compared with an authorised establishment of approximately 850 platforms. The gap has widened as older aircraft have retired and replacements have arrived late, leaving the IAF with less margin to rotate fleets, maintain training pipelines, sustain forward deployments, and preserve combat capability across multiple sectors.

A two-front contingency would place exceptional demands on Indian airpower. The IAF would need to defend long northern and eastern borders, support land forces, protect critical infrastructure, conduct offensive operations, and retain reserves for escalation. It would also need to operate under the pressure of modern integrated air-defence systems, electronic warfare, cyber threats, and long-range precision strike. In such an environment, numerical strength matters because no air force can generate unlimited sorties from a small fleet without rapidly degrading readiness, aircrew availability, and maintenance capacity.

The problem is particularly acute because India’s principal adversaries are modernising rapidly. China fields substantial numbers of advanced fighters and continues to develop next-generation capabilities, while Pakistan is expanding and upgrading its own air force. India therefore cannot assume that a temporary squadron shortfall can be offset merely by superior tactics or a small number of high-end platforms. It needs both quality and quantity: advanced sensors, electronic warfare, munitions, and networks, alongside enough combat aircraft to sustain operations across dispersed theatres.

Why Squadrons Matter

A fighter squadron is not simply a collection of aircraft. It represents an operational unit with trained aircrew, ground crews, maintenance infrastructure, spares, munitions, command arrangements, and a defined wartime role. When squadron numbers fall, the IAF loses more than airframes; it loses the institutional capacity to generate sorties, sustain operations, absorb attrition, and maintain a credible deterrent posture.

The current shortfall creates several risks. First, it reduces the number of aircraft available for routine air-defence missions, leaving less capacity for training, contingency response, and surge operations. Second, it increases the operational burden on existing fleets, potentially accelerating fatigue and maintenance requirements. Third, it makes the force more vulnerable to losses, because a smaller fleet has fewer reserves from which to replace combat-degraded aircraft.

In a two-front war, these constraints would be amplified. The IAF would need to cover multiple axes simultaneously, respond to unpredictable escalation, and maintain sufficient depth to replace losses over time. A force operating close to its sanctioned minimum has limited capacity to do all of these things at once.
The TEJAS Bottleneck

The TEJAS MK-1A is central to India’s effort to rebuild fighter strength. The IAF has ordered 180 Mk1A aircraft, and HAL has expanded its TEJAS production capacity from 16 to 24 aircraft per year by adding a third assembly line at Nashik. This expansion is significant because it demonstrates that India can increase fighter production capacity when political direction, funding, and industrial investment align.

However, production capacity alone does not guarantee deliveries. The MK-1A program has been delayed principally by late supply of GE Aerospace F404-IN20 engines, along with the complexity of weapons and software integration. By the end of September 2026, GE had reportedly supplied only 14 of the 99 engines ordered by HAL under a 2021 contract, despite the original delivery schedule having begun much earlier. Reports further indicate that dozens of completed or near-complete airframes were awaiting engines, illustrating how a single imported component can constrain an entire national fighter program.

This experience exposes a structural weakness in India’s defence-industrial model. India can design and assemble advanced combat aircraft, but it remains dependent on foreign suppliers for critical propulsion technology and certain high-end subsystems. Until engine production, overhaul, spares, and component manufacturing are more securely anchored in India, fighter-induction schedules will remain vulnerable to external supply-chain disruptions.

The Industrial Solution

India’s response should therefore focus on building an integrated aerospace manufacturing ecosystem rather than pursuing aircraft procurement in isolated tranches. The objective should be to ensure that design, production, testing, integration, maintenance, and upgrade capability are all located within a resilient national industrial base.

The first priority is to stabilise TEJAS MK-1A production. HAL’s expanded capacity must be matched by predictable engine supply, timely delivery of sensors and mission systems, stable funding, and a clear production schedule.

The government should use multi-year contracts with defined delivery milestones, quality-assurance mechanisms, and incentives for on-time performance. This would give HAL and its suppliers the confidence to invest in tooling, skilled manpower, testing infrastructure, and component capacity.

The second priority is engine self-reliance. India should treat fighter-engine capability as a strategic program on par with aircraft development. This requires investment in indigenous design, materials, hot-section manufacturing, testing, certification, overhaul, and spares production. Even where complete engine technology cannot immediately be indigenised, India should progressively localise critical modules, components, and maintenance activity to reduce the risk of foreign supply interruptions.

The third priority is to broaden the supplier base. India’s public-sector aerospace industry cannot alone deliver the scale and speed required to rebuild squadron strength. Private Indian firms should be integrated as Tier-1 suppliers for airframes, composite structures, avionics, radars, electronic-warfare systems, landing gear, munitions, ground support equipment, and maintenance services. A wider industrial base would create competition, improve resilience, and enable surge production during a crisis.

Hi-Tech Readiness

Manufacturing more aircraft will not solve the IAF’s problem if a large share of the fleet remains unavailable for operations. The next frontier of Indian airpower is therefore readiness technology: the ability to know which aircraft are mission-ready, predict failures before they occur, and return aircraft to service quickly.

The IAF should deploy a fleet-wide digital-twin and predictive-maintenance system. Such a platform would combine flight-data monitoring, engine diagnostics, sensor readings, maintenance histories, spares consumption, and operational usage to forecast component failures before they ground an aircraft. The result would be higher serviceability, better spare-parts planning, and more efficient allocation of maintenance resources.

Artificial intelligence can also improve mission planning and logistics. AI-enabled systems could help commanders assess aircraft availability, optimise sortie generation, identify maintenance bottlenecks, forecast spares requirements, and model operational scenarios across multiple fronts. These tools would not replace human judgement, but they would give commanders faster and more accurate decision support in a high-tempo conflict.

India should also invest in resilient logistics. Blockchain-backed parts traceability, digital inventory systems, additive manufacturing for selected non-critical components, and mobile repair capability could reduce downtime and improve supply-chain visibility. In a two-front war, the ability to keep aircraft flying may matter as much as the ability to produce new ones.

Manned-Unmanned Teaming

The IAF should not view unmanned systems as a replacement for manned fighters. Instead, it should use them to extend the reach, survivability, and effectiveness of manned squadrons. Loyal wingman-type drones, AI-enabled intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance platforms, electronic-warfare systems, and loitering munitions can perform high-risk or repetitive missions while preserving scarce manned fighters for tasks that require human judgement and complex combat capability.

This approach is especially important in a two-front scenario. Autonomous systems can help monitor wide areas, suppress enemy air defences, provide targeting data, and create operational uncertainty for adversaries. They can also reduce the risk to pilots and high-value manned aircraft. However, their effectiveness depends on secure communications, resilient networks, robust autonomy, and integration with India’s command-and-control architecture.

Policy Recommendations

1. India should adopt a time-bound national airpower-industrialisation program with clear accountability and measurable outcomes. The program should have five central objectives.
2. Stabilise TEJAS MK-1A deliveries by synchronising airframe production, engine supply, sensors, weapons integration, and quality assurance.
3. Create a sovereign engine roadmap covering design, licensed production where necessary, component indigenisation, overhaul, spares, and future propulsion development.
4. Expand private-sector Tier-1 participation through long-term production contracts, technology-transfer arrangements, and incentives for domestic manufacturing.
5. Build an AI-enabled readiness system using digital twins, predictive maintenance, spares forecasting, and fleet-health monitoring.
6. Develop manned-unmanned teaming to increase survivability, extend reach, and conserve manned fighter capacity in a two-front contingency.

The Road Ahead

India’s fighter-squadron shortfall is serious, but it is not irreversible. The country possesses a growing industrial base, an expanding TEJAS program, an active defence-start-up ecosystem, and increasing political emphasis on self-reliance in defence production. HAL’s expanded TEJAS capacity, new production lines at Nashik, and the eventual induction of MK-1A aircraft provide a foundation upon which India can build.

The decisive test will be execution. India must ensure that production targets translate into delivered aircraft, that engines arrive when airframes are ready, that private suppliers are integrated into the main production chain, and that maintenance systems keep aircraft available for combat. If these links are strengthened, India can begin to close the squadron gap while simultaneously improving the quality, survivability, and sustainability of its air power.

The central lesson is clear: airpower in a two-front war cannot be restored through procurement announcements alone. It must be manufactured, sustained, networked, and continuously regenerated. India’s defence-manufacturing sector must therefore become not merely a supplier of equipment, but a strategic partner in national security—capable of delivering the aircraft, engines, sensors, munitions, and maintenance capacity that the IAF needs to deter, fight, and win across more than one front.

IDN (With Agency Inputs)