India must see the use of AI-powered drones in combat as a “national security epoch “, or it will lag in modern warfare, Lt General Raj Shukla (retd) stressed on Sunday, speaking at the NDTV Defence Summit 2026 in New Delhi.
“This is [one of] those once-in-three-centuries moments… like gunpowder, mechanisation, tanks, airpower, those kinds of things. I am confident that by next year it will be humans out of the loop. “All this is being powered by AI software: Delta, Maven, Claude. If we are not talking about that in India, then we seem to be behind… Joshi, a retired Indian Air Force fighter pilot, explained, “Largely autonomous drones powered by AI software and automatic target recognition are able to close the kill chain in the shortest possible time. They can recognise a target and go after it. But he added caution: “The Ukrainians, talking of Hornet (drone system) — which is interestingly made by a company which is supported by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google — say that ‘the drone proposes and the human on the loop disposes’. I ask: in a dense electronic warfare environment, who is going to dispose the decision?
And it’s very important to acknowledge this because, unless we do that, we will not step up,” the former Army Commander said in a panel discussion moderated by NDTV’s Vishnu Som. Because of recursive learning, forecasting, he further said, “You will have lethal, precise drone swarms, autonomous targeting, constantly getting better.
I don’t think we have quite grasped the stakes,” said Lt Gen Shukla, who is currently a member of the Union Public Service Commission. However, he said autonomous drones are “here to stay”. “It is on the verge, on the bounds of autonomy, trust, ethics, and how you want to use it.”
Ukraine has 8 million armed drones, according to Lt Gen Shukla. “Russia, having learnt from Ukraine, has the Geran program, 10 million [drones]. The United States is faltering at about 22,000, though now they have the Drone Dominance Initiative [at a budget of] $70 billion. China has 1 billion armed drones. That should wake us up — 1 billion,” he added.
“And it’s across theaters,” he added. He said India would need to adapt, “make structural and cultural corrections”, which he termed “bigger than the China challenge”, referring to tensions with the eastern neighbour. “Unless we get this (AI) adaptation right, we will not be able to measure up to other challenges, like China and all,” he stressed.
