In a strong public rebuke, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan has issued a direct and unsparing message to India’s defence industry – deliver on time, stop exaggerating capabilities, and get real about India’s battlefield demands. He noted that the armed forces are preparing for wars of the future, and the industry must keep pace with honesty, speed, and real capability.
Speaking at Brainstorming Session 2.0 on the future of warfare, the CDS said the nature of conflict is evolving too rapidly for companies to hide behind inflated claims, shifting deadlines, and profit-driven overpromising. With India entering an era of networked, precision-heavy, multi-domain warfare, he warned industry players that the margin for error has effectively “closed.
Calling the session a platform to align India’s military and industry mindset for data-centric, multi-domain, AI-enabled warfare, the CDS said the era of preparing for “the previous war” is over. “To win future wars, we must fight with tomorrow’s technology today,” he declared.
How are Indian Armed Forces preparing for future warfare?
General Chauhan offered a rare, detailed look at India’s evolving warfighting philosophy, explaining that the warfare fighting doctrines have been revised, whetherit is space, cyber, multi-domain ops, special forces, amphibious, airborne. A shift from network-centric to data-centric warfare is already underway.
CDS Chauhan stated that future warfare courses and RUN Samvad seminars now include industry and academia, adding that an organisational restructuring for multi-domain operations is in progress. He stressed that soldiers don’t get to “practice war every day,” so the thought process, doctrines and equipment must be correct before conflict arrives.
Where does India’s defence industrial base stand?
For the first time, the CDS publicly put forward key numbers that reflect India’s expanding defence ecosystem -430+ licensed defence manufacturers, 16,000 MSMEs supporting them, Rs 1.5 lakh crore defence production in 2024–25, up 18%, Rs 3 lakh crore target by 2029–30. Moreover, 75% of capital budget is now reserved for domestic procurement.
General Chauhan called this the result of a decade-long push to build a strong military-industrial base for a Viksit Bharat 2047.
Why did the CDS warning defence industry?
General Chauhan criticised a recurring pattern, including firms chasing contracts with unrealistic promises; delays justified by technical excuses; capabilities that look good on paper but collapse in trials. He called this behaviour “unacceptable in the era of emerging threats”, stressing that India’s armed forces can no longer afford vulnerabilities created by unreliable timelines or overstated performance.
His message, described internally as a “red line”, signals a tightening of expectations as India pushes for credible, combat-ready indigenous systems under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat vision.
What does the CDS expect from defence companies?
The speech’s sharpest moment came when General Chauhan warned companies against misleading claims and missed deadlines. His expectations were blunt that industry players be honest about indigenous content, stop inflating capability statements, deliver equipment on time, avoid leaving the armed forces “in the lurch”.
In addition, they should be cost-competitive for global markets, not just domestic buyers. CDS Gen Chauhan cited multiple instances from emergency procurements where firms “overpromised and failed to deliver,” calling it unacceptable in matters of national security.
General Chauhan urged participants to offer frank, actionable, and bold inputs, saying synergy between the services, DRDO, academia, startups and industry is the “true force multiplier”. He set the tone with a clear expectation, “Let this session forge ideas that accelerate Indianisation. The geopolitical environment demands nothing less.”