Thank you dear subscribers, we are overwhelmed with your response.Your Turn is a unique section from ThePrint featuring points of view from its subscribers. If you are a subscriber, have a point of view, please send it to us. If not, do subscribe here: https://theprint.in/subscribe/
On October 23, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh handed the Indian Army its new playbook for the future. Released during the Army Commanders’ Conference in New Delhi, the Land Warfare Doctrine 2026 sets out how our soldiers will fight in the coming decades. Chaired by Army Chief General Dhiraj Seth, the military brass agreed on a basic reality of modern conflict. Future wars will not be won simply by the side with the biggest tanks or the largest troop numbers. They will be won by the force that thinks faster, sees farther using drones, and protects its computer networks from enemy hackers.
It is a bold and necessary vision. However, a military doctrine remains a paper wish list until it meets the reality of the barracks and the factory floor. While commentators have rightly praised the Army for looking ahead, the hard part begins now. If the government wants to turn these glossy pages into real battlefield muscle, it must urgently fix three glaring problems in how we train our youth, how our forces work together, and how we build our weapons.
The first hurdle is a simple matter of arithmetic. Alongside the new doctrine, the Army announced a massive five year training plan to prepare troops for modern tech warfare. Officers will take courses in artificial intelligence, and every single soldier must now learn how to operate drones. Flying a military drone in a combat zone is nothing like flying a toy camera at a wedding. A soldier must learn to navigate when the enemy jams satellite signals, read thermal sensors at night, and guide artillery fire onto moving targets. It takes years of dedicated practice to get this right.
Yet this five year training dream crashes straight into the four year wall of the Agnipath scheme. In December 2026, the very first batch of around 40,000 Agniveers will finish their four year service term. Under current rules, three out of every four of these young soldiers will pack their bags and return home. Consider what that means on the ground.
Just as a young soldier masters the tricky art of flying attack drones or operating electronic jammers, the Army will hand him a discharge slip. You cannot build a smart tech army when 75 percent of your new recruits leave every four years. New Delhi must revise the rules and retain a much larger share of skilled soldiers in uniform.
The second problem involves teamwork. Last year, Operation Sindoor gave India a clear preview of how modern wars are won. We succeeded in that mission because the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force fought as one tight unit. Fighter jets, naval radars, and ground troops shared live data under a joint setup led by the Chief of Defence Staff and the service chiefs. Given that lesson, it is strange that the Army has released its own solo fighting plan while the country is still busy setting up joint theatre commands. Worse, the main rulebook guiding all three services together has not been updated since 2017. Having the Army lock in its own plans and buying habits before the joint commands are ready is like buying furniture before building the house. Chief of Defence Staff General NS Raja Subramani must quickly release a fresh joint doctrine so the three services do not buy radios and drones that cannot talk to each other.
The third challenge lies inside our factories. The presence of the Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology at the Delhi conference proved that tiny silicon chips and software code are now as deadly as bullets. On paper, Indian defence production hit a record 1.78 lakh crore rupees in the 2025 and 2026 fiscal cycle, with private firms supplying weapons like the Nagastra loitering munitions. Look closer, however, and about 60 percent of vital drone components still come from abroad.
Our manufacturers rely heavily on foreign motors, camera sensors, and microchips. If a long war breaks out along our borders, foreign suppliers could cut off these parts overnight. The government must fund local companies to make every chip, motor, and battery right here in India. A clever battle plan means little if the drone operator goes home early, the Air Force cannot read the Army’s map, and the microchip is stuck at a foreign port.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.