IAF chief rejects Elon Musk's prediction on future of warfare: 'He is a businessman ...'

IAF chief AP Singh (L) and Elon Musk (R)

Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal AP Singh responded to billionaire Elon Musk’s assertion that drones will define the future of warfare while manned aircraft will become irrelevant.

In a response to Musk’s recent remark on X that “Drones are the future of warfare, manned aircraft are not,” the IAF chief underpinned the continuing significance of fighter jets in modern combat.

“At the moment, there are three or four major programs which are going on in the world, which they are calling the Sixth Gen Aircraft Program, NGAD, other different names. Now, all of them are manned. The importance of man, as of now, as I can see in the foreseeable future, is not going to fade away,” Singh said.

He stressed that while unmanned systems will play an increasing role, they cannot operate in isolation. “There will be unmanned systems. But those unmanned systems have to work in collaboration with the manned system or have to be controlled by a man. So the relevance of fighters will remain in the years to come,” he noted.

Taking a veiled swipe at Musk’s commercial outlook, Singh remarked, “Elon Musk is a businessman. He will talk about it like that because he himself is running a business. His cars, now you see how many of them are there on the road. I'm talking about just a simple car. When it comes to war fighting, I don't think we can just say that the next generation will see only unmanned by the end of their tenure. It will not happen like that. So manned platforms will remain.”

The recent four-day military conflict between India and Pakistan saw excessive use of drones, most of which were deployed for strategic purposes. However, the decisive point in the conflict came when the forces struck Pakistani airbases with its missiles, prompting the neighbour to reach out to India for ceasefire.