India Is Building Weapons Faster And Smarter – And The U.S. Should Be Worried

India.com

3 days ago

New Delhi: Operation Sindoor may have been a victory for India, but it might signal something bigger. And that is unraveling of America's defence monopoly. A revolution is underway, and it is not happening in Washington. It is happening in New Delhi.
The world noticed when Indian Air Force jets thundered across the border during Operation Sindoor and struck terror camps with surgical precision. In addition to the military success, what foreign observers picked up and what the Pentagon should be losing sleep over is how efficiently India pulled it off.
While American weapons manufacturers are stuck in spiraling budgets, bloated procurement cycles and Cold War-era thinking, India is moving fast, building smart and spending less. And as Small Wars Journal notes in a recent essay by John Spencer and Vincent Viola that contrast is growing too big to ignore.
Consider this. India's Pinaka rocket launcher costs around $56,000. Its American equivalent, the GMLRS missile, comes in at a hefty $148,000. India developed Akashteer air defence system at a fraction of the cost of a U.S. Patriot battery or NASAMS unit. And even Iran's infamous Shahed-136 drone, which is priced at just $20,000, is proving more agile in combat zones than the $30 million MQ-9 Reaper built in the United States.
This is not only about economics but also about agility. In conflict after conflict, whether it is the mountains of Ladakh or the skies over Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, India is proving that good enough and fast beats perfect and late.
On the other hand, the U.S. military-industrial complex, dominated by Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and a few others, is beginning to look less like an innovation hub and more like a cartel. As reported by Eurasian Times , nine of the world's top 20 arms companies are American. But this consolidation is proving to be a liability.
The Small Wars Journal authors are blunt. 'This is not competition, it is cartelised domination,' they say.
With 41 of the top 100 defence firms headquartered in the United States, one might expect agility. Instead, the opposite is true – bureaucracy, complacency and decade-long project timelines.
Just look at the F-35 stealth fighter. With a staggering $1.7 trillion lifetime cost, it has become the poster child of America's cost-plus culture – over-promised, under-delivered and nearly impossible to fix.
Designed in an era of battleships and nuclear deterrence, the U.S. acquisition system simply cannot keep up with the speed of modern warfare. From counter-IED kits in Iraq to urgent drone requests in Afghanistan, most battlefield innovations have had to go around the system, not through it.
The war in Ukraine highlighted this. While Javelins and HIMARS made headlines, U.S. production lines struggled to meet demand. Artillery shells ran dry. Supply chains creaked. And in the background, Russia and China watched and learned.
The real disruption? Countries like India are not just buying anymore. They are manufacturing. From the indigenous Sudarshan Chakra (S-400 system) to whispers about India eyeing Russia's S-500 Prometheus, which is capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles and low-orbit satellites, India is preparing for the next generation of conflict. And it is not waiting for the Pentagon to catch up.
It is a wake-up call for the United States. Even President Donald Trump once said that U.S. defence companies had 'merged in', killing off negotiation and competition. The previous Biden administration too shared the same view. A recent White House executive order called out the broken procurement system, demanding a full reform plan within 60 days.
But will it be enough? The United States needs fewer gold-plated platforms and more rugged and scalable systems. It needs smaller, faster and more modular production networks. It needs to treat allies like Israel as real partners, not passive clients.
And, as Spencer and Viola argue, it needs 'permanent and deployable learning teams' in real war zones to feed real-time combat data back into weapons design and battlefield innovation. Think agile warfare at scale.
For now, the U.S. still has the tech edge. But as China surges and India masters fast cost-effective lethality, the world's defence balance is beginning to tilt.