India Monitoring Chinese Deployments Along LAC Using Military Satellites, Drones; Working On Reducing ‘Sensor-To-Shooter’ Time

In an interview with The Week, Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari, Chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF), hinted that effective surveillance with space-based assets and inter-service cooperation might be the key to thwarting China’s misadventures.

The Chief of Air Staff highlighted the importance of maintaining a close and continuous watch on areas of national interest in light of the strong Chinese threat on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The IAF is pursuing a strategy of optimum-sensor utilisation for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) which includes utilising space-based military, civil, and commercial assets including manned and unmanned platforms, he said.

The Air Chief Marshal also alluded towards the growing cooperation of the three services in the ISR role, stating that the enhanced cooperation has allowed faster and optimum dissemination of surveillance inputs and has avoided duplication of efforts.

This cooperation was evident when Indian Navy’s P-8Is were seen patrolling Ladakh at the peak of tensions in June-July 2020 just after the Galwan clash in June 2020, where Indian and Chinese soldiers lost their lives in a brutal clash.

Even before, P-8Is have provided surveillance, particularly in the Doklam crisis of 2017, where P-8Is’ real-time surveillance capabilities were widely appreciated by the then Army Chief, and later Chief of Defence Staff, late General Bipin Rawat.

Just a month ago, in December 2022, Indian Navy’s MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones were spotted operating near India’s frontier with Tibet, to keep an eye on Chinese movement following the clashes in Yangtse in Arunachal’s Tawang region.

The IAF chief also emphasised the importance of space-based surveillance capabilities in maintaining national security.

He said that the IAF is working to enhance its capabilities in this area, with a focus on multi-spectral, all-weather surveillance and faster revisit from space-based assets.

The ultimate goal is to fully integrate air and space capabilities in order to have a common picture of the aerospace medium, reduce the sensor-to-shooter time and enable optimum force application.

In the same interview, he highlighted once again the need for the procurement and earliest induction of 5-6 squadrons of multi-role fighter aircraft.

The IAF is short on fighter squadron strength, with only 31 of the 42 sanctioned squadrons currently making up the fleet.

The numbers will go down further due to the retirement of old fighters like the MiG-21s.

The Air Chief Marshal on multiple occasions has said that, with the current rate of induction, IAF will have in its fleet only 35 squadrons by 2035. On the other hand, the Chinese are inducting fighters at a pace far outmatching the IAF’s.