Air Power Asia

The U.S. is the world’s largest economy by nominal GDP in 2026, while China leads when adjusting for purchasing power. India is at 3

Indias Extreme Poverty Drops From 27.1% To 2.6% In 12 Years: World Bank ndtv.com/india-news/indias-e…

Interesting @Nambitiger1

Salute

A ‘super’ rebrand: US Navy mandates dropping ‘artificial intelligence’ militarytimes.com/off-duty/m…

China’s first aircraft carrier forms ‘evolving pattern’ of voyages in disputed Asian seas defensenews.com/global/asia-…

US military needs ‘urgent revolutionary institutional change’ to prepare for modern war, Petraeus says militarytimes.com/news/penta…

‘The West can’t stop me’: Space wars heat up as Russia tails a Ukraine-linked US satellite defensenews.com/space/2026/1…

jamestown.substack.com/p/rus… Executive summary The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become Russia’s main foreign supplier of drones, providing engines, navigation components, and technical support, and a Chinese state-owned company now also ships the precursor used to make the drones’ carbon fiber. Russia’s state corporation, Rosatom, opened a plant in 2021 to end Russia’s reliance on Chinese precursors. Imports kept surging, however, and a new line approved in 2026 again pursues import substitution. Russia pays the PRC a rising premium for goods it cannot produce at scale. At the same time, Ukraine’s expanding long-range strikes threaten critical industrial sites, whose loss would deepen Russia’s dependence on Chinese components. Why not India?

Chinese PLA Command & Control in Tibet and Xinjiang newreckk.substack.com/p/comm…

आंखों की बनावट।. Interesting

Colonel Shukla's recent critique of the IAF mistakes cultural confidence for institutional decay & selective nostalgia for strategic analysis. As a veteran IAF officer I find the piece more revealing of the author’s assumptions than of any genuine leadership deficit in the service. The charge that Sanskrit quotations and references to the Ramayana at official briefings somehow “Hindutva-ise” the Air Force is particularly thin. Indian public life has always drawn upon our civilisational language. When an air marshal opens a media briefing with a verse, it is treated as ideological signalling. Had the same officer quoted Churchill or Clausewitz, it would have been praised as intellectual breadth. The objection appears less about professionalism and more about discomfort with any open affirmation of Indian civilisational identity within uniformed institutions. That discomfort is the author’s, not the IAF’s. The suggestion that Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra’s post-retirement appointment is evidence of ideological reward is equally unconvincing. Officers who plan and execute complex operations under real constraints are often asked to take on civilian responsibilities for a variety of reasons, competence being high among them. Reducing a successful operational career to a political transaction does a disservice. It also assumes that every subsequent appointment must be viewed through a single ideological lens. This makes an analyst with an agenda. On the “zero-error syndrome,” the article recycles an old complaint. Risk aversion is a real institutional tendency in any large military, particularly one that operates under nuclear thresholds and simultaneous continental and maritime pressures. Equating measured caution in 2020 with a permanent loss of offensive spirit is an oversimplification. The same service now accused of timidity has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to hold and dominate difficult terrain when the operational picture and political guidance aligned. Leadership is not measured by how quickly one escalates; it is measured by whether the force remains ready, cohesive and capable when the moment actually arrives. The claim of a growing disconnect between “lions” and “donkeys” is the oldest refrain in military commentary. Junior officers have always grumbled about seniors; seniors have always fretted about the quality of juniors. What has changed is the volume of public commentary that turns ordinary institutional friction into a civilisation-level crisis. The IAF continues to attract, train and retain officers who fly demanding missions in difficult conditions. That record is more relevant than seminar-room complaints about language and vocabulary. Colonel Shukla ends by invoking the Truman–MacArthur clash as a model of principled military independence. The analogy is misplaced. India’s constitutional framework and civil-military traditions are not those of America in 1951. Indian service chiefs have long given candid military advice while remaining within the boundary set by elected authority. That is not weakness; it is the system working as designed. Demanding that senior officers “seize the moment” by publicly challenging government policy is not a call for better leadership. It is a call for a different political arrangement altogether—something practised in Pakistan. In the end, the article reads less like a diagnosis of military leadership and more like serious discomfort with the cultural self-confidence now visible in parts of the armed forces. One can debate the wisdom of particular public statements or post-retirement appointments. Turning those debates into a sweeping indictment of the IAF’s professional character is rather like criticising the entire batting order because one batsman prefers a particular stance. The scoreboard of operational performance remains the best measure. On that measure, the IAF continues to hold its own explains Air Marshal Nambiar of the Kargil fame.

A total of 600 Nigerian Army personnel are heading to India for specialised jungle and mountain warfare training with the Indian Army 🇮🇳🇳🇬. The first batch of 300 soldiers departed from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja on Thursday aboard two Indian Air Force aircraft — a C-17 Globemaster III and an Airbus A321.

German girl pump foiling. This is the process of riding a hydrofoil board across flat water with no wind, waves, or motor. The rider uses a continuous up-and-down body and leg rhythm to convert physical energy into forward speed and lift. I 🫡 her efforts.