The Indian Air Force is facing a serious and immediate crisis. Its indigenous fighter jet, the Tejas Mk1, suffered an accident on February 7 at a frontline airbase, when the aircraft overshot the runway during a training sortie. The pilot ejected; the airframe sustained damage severe enough to be considered a write-off. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited described the event as a “minor technical incident on ground”—language carefully calibrated to distinguish it from an official crash. Whatever the terminology, the operational consequences have been significant: the Air Force has grounded approximately 30 of its Tejas Mk1 aircraft pending investigation. This is a major setback for a force already operating well below its sanctioned strength.

By its own assessment, the Air Force requires at least 42 squadrons to meet current defence contingencies, particularly given the possibility of a two-front challenge from Pakistan and China. Following the retirement of its last MiG-21 squadrons in September 2025, it fields 29-31 squadrons, a deficit translating into nearly 200 fighter aircraft. With the entire Tejas fleet grounded, India is effectively short by the equivalent of two additional squadrons, deepening an already critical gap.

This crisis must be understood in the broader context of India’s recent military experience. India’s Operation Sindoor against Pakistan became a turning point in how observers assess the country’s defence capabilities. Before it, India was widely viewed as a rising power whose capabilities could potentially match China’s over time, and as a key pillar of America’s Indo-Pacific strategy within the Quad framework. India was increasingly regarded as the most important regional power capable of balancing China’s rise.

Operation Sindoor altered many of those perceptions. India sought to punish Pakistan for what it believed was Islamabad’s role in the terrorist attacks in Pahalgam. It appears India may not have anticipated the robustness of Pakistan’s response; the conflict lasted barely 100 hours. While India may have prevailed in certain tactical engagements, it appears to have suffered setbacks in the broader diplomatic and narrative arenas. What became increasingly evident to external observers was that the Air Force had incurred losses. The precise number remains contested—whether three, four, five, or seven aircraft—but there is broad acknowledgement that India lost fighter jets, including, according to Pakistani claims disputed by New Delhi, its most advanced platform, the French Rafale.

Why air power matters in modern warfare

What deserves emphasis is how the episode exposed a deeper structural weakness in India’s defence posture—particularly in air power. In the modern era, air forces have become the primary instrument of military projection. While armies remain essential for territorial defence, air power enables rapid escalation control, deterrence, and the ability to project force beyond national borders. Any country aspiring to regional or great-power status must possess a technologically advanced and numerically sufficient air force.

India, facing two nuclear-armed adversaries, cannot afford sustained deficiencies in either quality or quantity. Yet the crisis is evident on both fronts. Squadron strength has steadily declined below sanctioned levels, raising serious concerns about India’s ability to manage a prolonged two-front contingency. Modernisation remains uneven and heavily dependent on foreign acquisitions.

To address this widening deficit, the government has adopted a two-pronged strategy. The first is to procure advanced aircraft to meet the Air Force’s immediate operational shortfalls.

Most prominently, India’s Defence Acquisition Council granted Acceptance of Necessity in February 2026 for the acquisition of 114 additional Rafale fighter jets in a package valued at roughly $40 billion. The proposal includes 18 fully built, off-the-shelf aircraft and 96 jets to be manufactured in India, though key details—delivery timelines, technology transfer, licensed production terms, and final unit costs—remain under negotiation before a formal contract is signed. The move reflects both urgency in replenishing depleted squadrons and continued reliance on foreign suppliers for cutting-edge capability.

The Atmanirbhar dilemma

Parallel to this procurement push is the attempt to build a genuinely indigenous fighter ecosystem. India’s quest for a fully domestic combat aircraft can be understood in three stages. The first is the Light Combat Aircraft programme, which produced the Tejas Mk1—a single-engine, roughly fourth-generation fighter that has been in limited production and service for several years.

The second stage is the more advanced Tejas Mk2, a 4.5-generation platform designed with greater range, payload capacity, and upgraded avionics, expected to be powered by the American GE F414 engine. Its prototype’s first flight is anticipated around mid-2026. India has been negotiating the acquisition of 99 F414 engines for this programme, but the deal has reportedly faced delays, particularly over the scope of technology transfer.

Even the existing Tejas Mk1 underscores the structural challenge. Although marketed as indigenous, critical components—including engines, avionics, radar systems, and munitions—are imported from the United States and Israel. By most estimates, the aircraft is only about 60 per cent indigenous. Repeated setbacks, including accidents and high-profile crashes, have further complicated India’s ambition to export the platform.

India in a fifth-generation world

The third and most ambitious stage is the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), envisioned as an indigenous fifth-generation stealth fighter projected to enter service around 2040. As part of this effort, India has entered early-stage negotiations with the French firm Safran for technology transfer in advanced jet engine production, including the possibility of manufacturing more than 100 engines domestically. These negotiations remain complex and unresolved, underscoring India’s broader struggle to achieve genuine technological autonomy in aerospace propulsion.

Even as India pursues these ambitions, it finds itself in a rapidly advancing global environment. The United States operates fifth-generation fighters—the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II—and is developing a sixth-generation platform under its Next Generation Air Dominance programme. China fields the J-20 and is already working on a sixth-generation fighter. Russia has inducted the Su-57 into service and is also actively pursuing next-generation capabilities.

By the time India’s AMCA is expected to become operational, major powers are likely to be deploying mature sixth-generation systems. India risks remaining in a cycle of technological catch-up—aspiring to field fifth-generation capabilities just as others move beyond them.

Strategic credibility and the limits of ambition

India is acutely aware of these deficiencies and is attempting to balance immediate acquisitions with long-term domestic capacity building. But the timelines are long, negotiations are complex, and indigenous capability development remains uneven. The grounding of the Tejas fleet, the continuing squadron shortfall, and the operational lessons of Operation Sindoor collectively illustrate the fragility of India’s air-power base.

Grounded ambitions are not merely about aircraft numbers; they are about strategic credibility. Air power is the backbone of deterrence, escalation management, and regional influence. If India’s aspirations are to match its rhetoric of great-power status, credible, sustainable, and technologically advanced air capabilities are indispensable. Until the gaps in numbers, modernisation, technological depth, and genuine indigenous production are addressed in a systemic and sustained manner, India’s strategic ambitions will remain constrained by the limits of its air force.

What’s in the horizon

India is, at best, a middle power. While it is indeed the fourth-largest economy in the world, with a GDP of roughly $4.2 trillion, it remains a lower-middle-income country, with a per capita income of approximately $2,880. It has made significant advances in certain sectors, particularly information technology, but continues to lag in manufacturing and advanced defence capabilities. Even under the current government in New Delhi, which emphasises indigenous production, manufacturing accounts for roughly 13 per cent of GDP—well below the 25 per cent target the government set for itself.

In defence, especially in advanced weapon systems, India remains heavily dependent on external suppliers. Its S-400 air defence system comes from Russia, as does much of its tank fleet and a substantial portion of its legacy fighter aircraft. Its newer fighter jets come from France, while many of its electronics, radar systems, and missile technologies are sourced from Israel. Fighter jet engines are acquired from the United States, as are various drone platforms, Apache and Chinook helicopters, and related weapons systems. In short, India depends on the United States, Russia, France, and Israel for high-quality military hardware—a dependency that sits uneasily alongside its great-power aspirations.

India could be a more effective and respected middle power if it calibrated its rhetoric and diplomacy more closely to its material capabilities. But if it continues to speak and posture as a great power without possessing the full spectrum of great-power capabilities, it risks strategic overreach. One can only hope that the gap between ambition and capacity does not lead to crises more damaging than Operation Sindoor.

Muqtedar Khan is Professor of International Relations at the University of Delaware. He is Senior Nonresident Fellow of the New Lines Institute in Washington DC and hosts a YouTube show called Khanversations.

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