India May Confront Synchronized Drone Assaults Exceeding 2000 Daily Sorties in a Future Multi-Domain Two-Front War, Warns CLAWS Study
Summary
A comprehensive brief by the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) warns that India faces an unprecedented drone threat from a potential collusive military partnership between China and Pakistan, who have both made significant investments across the full spectrum of unmanned aerial systems. The study projects that India could face coordinated drone attacks involving 1,500 to 2,000 or more platforms per day during high-intensity conflict, with threats expected to unfold in two distinct phases — an initial grey-zone phase of persistent surveillance and harassment, followed by large-scale swarm attacks designed to overwhelm air defence and command-and-control infrastructure. China's doctrine of "intelligentised warfare," exemplified by advanced swarm systems like the Atlas platform capable of deploying nearly 100 drones within minutes, combined with Pakistan's demonstrated tactical innovations during Operation Sindoor — including using decoy drones to exhaust defensive resources before deploying attack drones — represents a compounded and sophisticated threat. While India has made measurable progress through indigenous defence initiatives under Make in India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat, including systems like the T-Shul Pulse, the overall coverage and deployment of counter-drone technologies including directed-energy weapons, microwave guns, and interceptor drones remains critically insufficient at scale.
Key Takeaways
- 1. **Two-Front Drone Saturation Risk:** India must prepare for simultaneous coordinated drone attacks across multiple theatres, with projections of 1,500–2,000+ drone sorties per day potentially overwhelming existing radar coverage and interception capacity
- 2. **Collusive China-Pakistan Threat:** The deliberate doctrinal alignment of both adversaries toward autonomous and AI-driven strike technologies significantly multiplies the operational threat, forcing India to defend multiple frontiers concurrently
- 3. **Sophisticated Enemy Tactics:** Pakistan's demonstrated use of decoy drone waves to drain defensive ammunition before launching attack drones, as evidenced in Operation Sindoor, signals a tactically evolved adversary that exploits systemic vulnerabilities
- 4. **Indigenous Capability Gaps Persist:** Despite progress under Aatmanirbhar Bharat with systems like the T-Shul Pulse, India's counter-drone ecosystem — including directed-energy weapons and microwave systems — lacks the scale and proliferation needed to address the magnitude of the projected threat
- 5. **Strategic Infrastructure at Risk:** Saturation drone strikes would threaten not only frontline military positions but also critical logistics chains, communication networks, and command infrastructure, making comprehensive multi-layered air defence an urgent national security priority