India Needs to Prepare for a War of Attrition

If the Russia-Ukraine war is of any indication, then there is a high probability that in future an all-out conflict with either of our adversaries will become a war of attrition. The advent of drone warfare, stand-off precision-strike capabilities, modern air defence systems and cyber, including AI-enabled operations, has rendered large-scale manoeuvre by mechanised and air forces increasingly difficult. The combined effect of these technologies has shifted contemporary conflict away from rapid and decisive campaigns towards attritional forms of warfare.

In addition to the technological changes, several other issues have made a swift, decisive victory increasingly difficult. The key drivers are:

• Power is More Balanced: Today, neither side has overwhelming military superiority (especially in our context). In addition, great powers arm their proxies and modern defensive technologies (drones, sensors, air defences etc) level the playing field. This creates a setting for protracted conflicts where each side tries to wear the other down rather than win quickly.
• Defence has Grown Stronger than Offence: Modern battlefields favour defence due to 24/7 surveillance, which makes achieving surprise harder and then precision artillery and drones punish the attackers while cheap anti-tank and anti-air weapons neutralise expensive systems. This results in winning territory at huge costs; so, both sides dig in and try and cause maximum damage to the other.
• Economic and Industrial Capacity Matters: Warfare is shifting back to industrial output. Producing shells, drones, missiles and vehicles at scale often determines success. A military’s endurance becomes more important than its manoeuvre skill, which is classic attrition.
• Political Goals: Conflicts such as Ukraine–Russia, Israel–Gaza, and Armenia–Azerbaijan often involve questions of territory, national identity and security dilemmas, which are considered non-negotiable. When goals can’t be compromised, wars drag on.
• External Support Prevents Collapse: Outside aid keeps weaker actors in the fight. Ukraine, receiving Western support, is a classic example. This reduces the likelihood of a quick victory.
• Domestic politics discourages concessions as leaders fear public backlash. So, they avoid negotiating early, extending conflicts into attrition.

The advent of drone warfare, stand-off precision-strike capabilities, modern air defence systems and cyber, including AI-enabled operations, has rendered large-scale manoeuvre by mechanised and air forces increasingly difficult

Thus, victory will favour the state that can absorb losses, repair and replace materiel, sustain tempo and impose escalating costs on the adversary until their system breaks. That requires re-thinking of strategy, force design, logistics and industry, not as a temporary surge but as a sustained national posture. Some suggestions are discussed below.

Strategic Principles

All our institutional structures must be designed for endurance. The core idea is that we must now base all our planning on the premise that we may have to fight for months, not days or weeks. Practical implications are:

• Design for Endurance: Choose force concepts, procurement and doctrine optimised for sustained expenditure of consumables (ammunition, fuel, spares) and continuous repair cycles. That means buying in quantities and modular capabilities, not just headline platforms, and revising our War Wastage Rates (WWR) and stocking policies.
• Disperse, Duplicate, Conceal: Reduce single points of failure, i.e. creating redundancy, especially with respect to command-and-control nodes (backup headquarters, alternate comms), which have multiple supply routes, depots and transportation modes; spare systems and equipment should be pre-positioned. Parallel capabilities must be created. Also, built-in mobility, camouflaged caches and duplicated facilities so that an adversary can’t eliminate the capability with a handful of strikes.
• Make Logistics Lethal: Don’t treat logistics as passive support. Treat supply nodes, routes, and depots as contested terrain that must be defended, hardened, and, when appropriate, used offensively to weaken the enemy. Logistics both enable operations and present high-value targets; CDRs should exploit both sides of that fact.
• Operate Distributed: Must be prepared to fight in smaller, modular units with organic intelligence, fires and sustainment to survive pervasive surveillance and precision strikes. Mass must be eschewed.
• Empower Lower Echelons: Push sensing, targeting and limited strike authorities to brigade and battalion levels to shorten decision cycles when communications are degraded.

Today, neither side has overwhelming military superiority (especially in our context). In addition, proxies and modern defensive technologies level the playing field. This creates a setting for protracted conflicts where each side tries to wear the other down rather than win quickly

Shift Force Posture on Land: Brigades, not Divisions

We must fully shift from slow, division-centric mass to brigade-centred distributed combat power (a beginning has been made in this direction with the creation of two Rudra Brigades). What that looks like:

• Integrated Multi-Domain Brigades: Reorganise the entire force into multi-domain brigades that can operate semi-autonomously for 7–21 days without reinforcements. Each should have organic short-range artillery, anti-tank capability, EW/air-defence dets, a UAV suite (recon plus loitering munitions) and a forward logistics node.
• Fire Density & Survivability: Expect high daily ammunition expenditure. Invest in rapid-rate 155mm artillery, tracked self-propelled guns with shoot-and-scoot mobility, and MLRS/rocket brigades for deep interdiction. Equip systems with automated fire control and fast concealment/decoy capabilities.
• Embedded Anti-Armour & Area Denial: ATGM teams at company/platoon level and light mobile anti-tank vehicles increase local survivability. Integrate layered area denial, i.e. mines, obstacles and prepared ambush zones, tied to ISR.
• Medium & Light Forces: Reduce concentrations of heavy armour in favour of medium-weight wheeled IFVs and protected transport for lateral movement, concealment and lower logistics burden.
• Engineering Depth: Rapid construction teams to build defensive belts, revetments and recovery corridors close to the front.
• Reserve Transformation: Reserves become trained auxiliaries (logistics, C-UAS, AD, local reconnaissance) with pre-positioned caches and regular high-readiness drills.

Victory will favour the state that can absorb losses, repair and replace materiel, sustain tempo and impose escalating costs on the adversary until their system breaks. That requires re-thinking of strategy, force design, logistics and industry, not as a temporary surge but as a sustained national posture

Space & Air Defence: Layered, Mobile & Attritable

Our aim should be to preserve air access and deny it to the enemy while accepting attrition. Key elements:

• Layered, Mobile IAD: Mix long-range strategic SAMs, mobile medium SAMs, point defence C-RAM and MANPADS. Emphasise mobility (road/rail redeploy), rapid setup/teardown and credible decoys.
• Air Parity & Survivability: Disperse basing, invest in hardened shelters, increase AEW&C and survivable sensors. Equip fighters with jamming pods; use dispersal and redundancies to blunt enemy strikes.
• Attritable Air Assets: Purchase and operate lower-cost, mass-arming platforms to include light attack aircraft, UCAVs and mass drones that can be produced and replaced more easily than high-end fighters. At the top end, invest in stealth. In future conflicts, stealth will no longer be optional; it is a core survival requirement for any air force expecting to operate in contested airspace.
• Counter-drone & EW: Build layered C-UAS (RF/radar/EO detection, soft-kill jamming/GPS denial, hard-kill interceptors). Create EW dets at the brigade level to contest the spectrum offensively and defensively.

Logistics & Industry: The Decisive Centre of Gravity

Wars of attrition will be won in factories and depots. Towards that end, we must ensure:

• Ammunition & Spares Surge: Set national production targets derived from campaign consumption models (daily rounds × planned months). Create surge agreements and guaranteed orders to rapidly scale. One of the primary reasons for Ukraine’s loss is the inability of European industries to meet the demands of the battlefield.
• De-risk Supply Chains: Diversify suppliers, localise critical components and maintain strategic stockpiles.
• Dispersed Logistics Network: Pre-position camouflaged stocks at BDE/BN level, harden rail/road nodes and create alternate routes (air drop, riverine lift).
• Decentralised Repair: Mobile repair teams and forward repair depots dramatically shorten mean time to repair and return systems to the fight.
• Industrial mobilisation: Pre-negotiated surge clauses, test capacities in peacetime and clear legal/financial mechanisms to trigger fast scaling.

India must fully shift from slow, division-centric mass to brigade-centred distributed combat power (a beginning has been made with the creation of two Rudra Brigades). The entire force must be reorganised into multi-domain brigades that can operate semi-autonomously for 7–21 days without reinforcements

ISR, C3, Cyber & Space: Resilient & Distributed

• Distributed ISR: Layer satellites, AEW, MALE UAVs and micro-UAVs with fusion cells that push targeting directly to brigades.
• Hardened C3: Decentralise command nodes, maintain mobile alternate command posts and preserve civilian-fibre-independent communications (HF, satcom, LOS mesh). Train robust manual fallback procedures.
• Space Resiliency: Grow small satellite constellations, resilient satcom, deployable ground terminals and anti-jamming technologies.

Training, Doctrine & Human Capital

This is one of the most important aspects of modern warfare. I have written extensively on the attributes and demands of junior leadership and soldiers. We must review our doctrine and training of JCOs/NCOs and soldiers at the earliest, with focus on:

• Mission Command: Train junior leaders to make independent decisions, with explicit doctrine delegating strike, evacuation and withdrawal authorities when communications fail. Similarly, soldiers must be trained to operate in teams of three and four for extended periods.
• Combined-arms & Multi Domain Exercises: Regular exercises with troops that integrate fires, UAVs, EW, ATGMs and special forces at brigade and battalion level.
• Long-duration Stress Tests: Simulate supply degradation, repair backlogs and heavy ISR pressure for weeks to measure endurance.
• Psychological Resilience: Rotation policies, mental-health programmes and casualty management plans to protect force morale over months.

To strengthen air power, India must invest in stealth capability. In future conflicts, stealth will no longer be optional; it is a core survival requirement for any air force expecting to operate in contested airspace. Our aim should be to preserve air access and deny it to the enemy while accepting attrition

Organisational Reforms

In order to be ready for the next conflict, Indian armed forces need urgent organisational reforms. While this is a subject in itself and a lot has been written on it, in brief, we need:

• National Security Council with permanent military planners.
• Reorganise the MoD into functional departments and strengthen the civilian-military fusion.
• Integrated Theatre Commands with dedicated logistics, AD and ISR authorities.
• Unified Defence Staff (beyond CDS) with a permanent joint planning staff, integrated cyber, space and EW commands and a unified special operations command.

• Attrition Sustainment Command – A tri-service logistics and munitions command to manage national war stock and industry surge.

Closing Thoughts

A war of attrition won’t be decided by a single decisive battle but by the nation which can sustain intensity, rotate forces, keep platforms functioning and maintain the will and means to continue. That requires policy decisions now: shift procurement towards consumables and attritable systems, carry out organisational reforms and reorganise force structures, harden and disperse logistics and cement industrial surge mechanisms.

Lt Gen Raman Dhawan

The writer, AVSM, VSM and Bar is an Army veteran. During his distinguished military career, spanning over four decades, he has tenanted a number of command and staff appointments in counter insurgency and proxy war environment in the North East and Jammu & Kashmir. He commanded his Regiment on Siachen Glacier and Kargil and a Mountain Brigade in counter insurgency operations in Manipur and was nominated to raise an Infantry Division in Arunachal Pradesh specially tasked to counter the Chinese threat. He has also been an instructor at the School of Artillery and Indian Military Academy and served with the United Nations. He is currently President of the National Adventure Foundation, an NGO which works closely with the Ministry of Youth Affair & Sports.