Indian Joint Air Defence Doctrine was released on 29 May 2026 by the former Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan. The launch of doctrine in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor (Indian framing of May 2025 crisis) and Marka-e-Haq (Pakistan’s framing of May 2025 crisis), and one day before the retirement of Gen Chauhan reflects the importance New Delhi attaches to integrated air and missile defense in an era of non-contact warfare. The doctrine reflects India’s growing focus on adapting its military posture to strengthen its preparedness for limited conventional conflicts and to enhance synergy among its tri-services. Moreover, the doctrine has been unveiled within a year of the announcement of the Sudarshan Chakra initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The initiative aims to develop a structure similar to Iron dome aimed at protecting critical civilian infrastructure, strategic assets, and military installations across India. However, the pursuit of a robust defensive architecture by New Delhi would carry negative implications for South Asian strategic stability, particularly in the context of future crises with Pakistan.
The Joint Indian Air Defense Doctrine is part of a series of joint doctrines issued by the Headquarters Integrated Defense Staff (IDS) to further institutionalize tri-service integration and joint warfighting. Over the past few years, India has unveiled Joint doctrines related to Multi-Domain Operations, Cyberspace Operations, Amphibious Operations, Special Forces Operation, and Airborne and Heliborne Operations. The objective of these doctrinal updates is to establish integrated operational concepts, enhance interoperability standards and strengthen joint planning mechanisms across the tri-services. Moreover, the doctrine is another stepping stone in the formation of theatre command project. India is pursuing “jointness” and “Integrated Theater Command” since the establishment of the post of CDS in 2020. However, doctrinal harmonization is a pre-requisite for theatreization as integrated commands need common concepts of operations and shared command-and-control frameworks to function effectively. Thus, the Joint Air Defense Doctrine would serve as a doctrinal foundation for future theater-level air defense operations.
The doctrine is focused on developing an integrated and layered air defense architecture capable of countering a wide-spectrum of threats, including drones, loitering munitions, precision-guided weapons, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and saturation attacks. The doctrine emphasizes on developing a synchronized “kill-web” architecture designed to compress decision-making timelines and link tracking systems with weapons across all domains. Drawing on the lessons from recent conflicts around the world, and also from May 2025 crisis between India and Pakistan, the doctrine reflects an increasing effort to develop the capability to detect, track, and neutralize large volumes of incoming aerial threats.
The Indian Joint Air Defense Doctrine would also play an integral role in the broader vision of Mission Sudarshan Chakra – an Indian Iron Dome. Mission Chakra, announced in August 2025, is an initiative to develop an indigenous layered missile defense shield capable of protecting both civilian and military infrastructures. According to the reports, the project aims to integrate advanced surveillance, interception, and counter-strike capabilities for the swift neutralization of threats in all three military domains – land, air, and sea. The doctrine would provide the blueprint for integrating air defense systems, long-range surveillance radars, command-and-control networks and ballistic missile defense assets for developing a networked system capable of operating across multiple layers and domains.
Beyond conventional air defence systems, India is investing heavily into developing a Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) architecture. India has already purchased five batteries of Russian S400 BMD system, and has approved the proposal for buying an additional five S400 batteries that would bring the total number to ten. Moreover, indigenously developed BMD system of India includes Prithvi Air Defense System (PAD) with the capability to intercept missiles at exo-atmospheric altitudes between 50-180 km, and the Ashwin Advanced Air Defence (AAD) system having a range of 20-40 km. India has also deployed short-range air defence systems including Akash and SPYDER. The Joint Air Defense Doctrine would seek to enhance Indian capabilities beyond defending against aircraft, drones and loitering munitions to protect against ballistic and cruise missile – strengthening Indian non-contact warfare capabilities.
However, the implications of defense systems are not only related to their physical capabilities but also to how they can shape perceptions, expectations and decision-making during crises. The Indian Joint Air Defense Doctrine would impact South Asian strategic stability in different ways. The enhancement of defensive capabilities can increase confidence of decision-makers in India regarding their ability to defend critical assets from retaliatory strikes, increasing their willingness to undertake military actions against Pakistan. India has already demonstrated its objectives of carving out space for a limited conventional conflict against Pakistan during May 2025 crisis. An increasingly robust defensive shield would only further reinforce these assumptions. However, this can negatively affect crisis stability in South Asia.
From Pakistan’s perspective, the Indian Joint Air Defense Doctrine would only reinforce the concerns regarding Indian strategic posture. Indian developments over the past decade regarding missile defense systems, precision-strike capabilities, advanced ISR platforms, and counterforce enabling technologies contribute to Pakistan’s perception that India is shifting away from credible minimum deterrence. This would influence Pakistan’s threat assessment in both conventional and strategic domains and can lead to decisions that would help in maintaining the credibility of its retaliatory capabilities. In short, the Joint Air Defense Doctrine and Sudarshan Chakra initiative are not merely technical manuals, but rather reflect India’s broader military transformation towards integrated theater commands, multi-domain warfare, and layered missile and air defense architecture. However, in the South Asian strategic environment, even defensive measures can generate negative consequences. The greater danger is not that India will achieve strategic immunity, but the false confidence that they have. In an environment of mistrust, where perceptions of vulnerability and security shape crisis behavior – these assumptions can be more dangerous than weapon systems themselves.
This article was published in another form at https://thediplomat.com/2026/06/indian-joint-air-defense-doctrine-implications-for-south-asian-stability/
Abdul Moiz Khan is Research Officer at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.
Dr. Summar Iqbal Babar is an assistant professor at the School of Politics and IR, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.
