CopiedNEW DELHI: A month into the US-Israel campaign against Iran, the battlefield is already yielding hard lessons. Drone swarms, precision strikes and networked air defence are no longer emerging concepts, they are being stress-tested in real time. In a wide-ranging interview, The New Indian Express speaks to former Director General of Army Air Defence Lt Gen (Dr.) VK Saxena (Retd) on the rise of unmanned systems, the stress points in Iran’s air defence architecture and the capability gaps India must urgently address.

I would not characterise it as a collapse. It was a case of sub-optimal performance under saturation. Any Integrated Air Defence System (IADS) rests on three core components: sensors, shooters and command and control.

Sensors include surveillance radars, early warning systems and electro-optical devices that detect and track aerial threats. Shooters comprise surface-to-air missile systems and anti-aircraft artillery that engage them. The critical layer is the battlefield management command and control system which fuses inputs, generates a recognised air picture, prioritises threats and assigns weapons in real time.

In Iran’s case, the sensor and shooter layers are relatively capable but uneven in quality, with a mix of legacy Soviet-origin, indigenous and reportedly Chinese-origin systems. The limitation lies in the command and control architecture.

Their Integrated Air Defence Command and Control System appears to have come under strain. It supports both the regular armed forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, creating a dual command structure. This leads to delays in decision-making, interoperability challenges and inefficient resource allocation, particularly during high-density, multi-axis attacks.

That is the second factor. Iranian capabilities are widely known due to the strong intelligence networks of the United States and Israel. When your adversary has deep visibility into your deployments, capabilities and vulnerabilities, it creates a significant operational disadvantage.