While India is establishing a strong aviation ecosystem by bringing together all stakeholders including the government, DPSUs, tri-services, academia and industry partners, it is believed that private Indian industries will be the crusaders for the government in defence production, particularly in the UAV vertical.
With a display of 1,000 indigenously produced swarm drones during the Beating Retreat, India would become the fourth nation to achieve such a feat, making it a front row actor with a strong foothold in the field of drone technology.
This book is about the strategic relevance of quantum technologies. It debates the military-specific aspects of this technology. Various chapters of this book cohere around two specific themes. The first theme discusses the global pattern of ongoing civilian and military research on quantum computers, quantum cryptography, quantum communications and quantum internet. The second theme explicitly identifies the relevance of these technologies in the military domain and the possible nature of quantum technology-based weapons. This thread further debates on quantum (arms) race at a global level in general, and in the context of the USA and China, in particular. The book argues that the defence utility of these technologies is increasingly becoming obvious and is likely to change the nature of warfare in the future.
The iDEX has made a commendable effort at putting a defence start-up ecosystem in place. The challenges ahead include maintaining momentum, obtaining funding, and accessing toolsets and data sets.
While the steps stipulated in draft DAP-2020 to enable smooth acquisition of systems indigenously designed by DRDO and other public sector entities are a right move, they need to be strengthened further to make procedures more robust and conducive for timely completion of projects.
The defence sector in all major countries has historically been a source of new technologies and innovation. As China and India grow in stature, the strengths of their defence sector ecosystems and the ability to innovate become areas of focus for policymakers. Since defence deals with the security of a nation, all defence ecosystems have some element of government leadership, direction and ownership. Against this must be balanced the need to ensure efficiencies and competitive capabilities, which requires entrepreneurship, private sector companies and the market mechanism.
This book debates and discusses the present and future of Disruptive Technologies in general and military Disruptive Technologies in particular. Its primary goal is to discuss various critical and advanced elucidations on strategic technologies. The focus is less on extrapolating the future of technology in a strict sense, and more on understanding the Disruptive Technology paradigm. It is widely accepted that technology alone cannot win any military campaign or war. However, technological superiority always offers militaries an advantage. More importantly, technology also has a great deterrent value. Hence, on occasion, technology can help to avoid wars. Accordingly, it is important to effectively manage new technologies by identifying their strategic utility and role in existing military architectures and the possible contributions they could make towards improving overall military capabilities. This can also entail doctrinal changes, so as to translate these new technologies into concrete advantages.
