Jodhpur, October 10: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday told air forces taking part in Exercise Tarang Shakti 2026 that future military power will be measured less by the number of platforms a country has and more by how quickly it can sense, decide and act.
He was addressing participants at Air Force Station Jodhpur. The second edition of the multinational air exercise is being hosted by the Indian Air Force (IAF) from September 26 to October 12, 2026.
Seven air forces, 32 observers
Air forces from Australia, Bangladesh, France, Germany, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates and the United States are taking part, along with 32 observer nations, according to the Defence Ministry.
Singh said modern warfare now reaches beyond land, sea and air into space, cyber, the electromagnetic spectrum and the information domain. He pointed to the growing role of drones, unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and long-range precision weapons.
“Future military power will be defined less by the number of platforms we possess. It will be determined by the speed of sensing, understanding, deciding, and acting,” he said.
Self-reliance with partners
The minister said India had adopted self-reliance in defence as national policy and that a country must be able to produce its own weapons and critical technologies to sustain itself in a long conflict. Self-reliance, he added, did not mean isolation from the world.
He listed indigenous programmes including the Tejas fighter, the Dhruv, Rudra, Prachand and Light Utility helicopters, the Akash air defence system and AESA radars. He described the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) programme as an important step towards fifth-generation stealth fighter technology and stressed the need for advanced aero-engine development and co-production.
India, he said, wants to work with like-minded countries on research, co-development, co-production, maintenance and training. “The defence relationships of the future will be about technology and trust, not just about platforms,” Singh said.
Lessons for the IAF
Singh said exercises such as Tarang Shakti let crews and commanders from different countries fly together, compare procedures and learn from each other’s doctrines. He asked the IAF to build the lessons of the exercise into its training, tactics, technology and future capability plans.
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