China Army | 'Bigger Than The China Challenge': Former Army Commander On AI Drone Warfare

India must see the use of AI-powered drones in combat as a "national security epoch", or it will lag in modern warfare, Lt General Raj Shukla (retd) stressed on Sunday, speaking at the NDTV Defence Summit 2026 in New Delhi. "This is [one of] those once-in-three-centuries moments... like gunpowder, mechanisation, tanks, airpower, those kinds of things. And it's very important to acknowledge this because, unless we do that, we will not step up," the former Army Commander said in a panel discussion moderated by NDTV's Vishnu Som. He explained with Ukraine as an example: "Till last year, the locus (control) of drone operations was with some very skilled remote operators. Because of the limitation of operators, Ukraine could launch 10,000 drone operations a day. This year, because of the transition to algorithmic warfare, they are launching about 20,000 operations a day. Look at the scale."