By Air Marshal Sanjeev Kapoor (Retd)
From Vulnerability to Vanguard: How India and Israel Learned to Guard the Skies Together
Forged in war and tested in crisis, the India-Israel air partnership now faces its hardest question yet: how do you stop a drone that costs less than the missile fired at it?
In February 2026, Israeli jets flew more than 1,500 kilometres to strike targets deep inside Iran. Very few air forces in the world could even attempt a mission like that, let alone carry it off. For anyone who has spent a career in uniform, it was a reminder that air power on that scale is never built overnight.
Israel's story begins with fear, not strength. In May 1948, just days after the country declared independence, Egyptian aircraft bombed Tel Aviv, and the new state had almost nothing to fight back with. That helplessness became the seed of everything that followed. Over the decades, Israel treated every moment of exposure as an engineering problem to be solved. Radar by radar, interceptor by interceptor, it built a layered air defence that now protects its skies even while its jets fly far beyond its borders.
India understands that story better than most. We, too, live with hostile borders and threats that come from the air. Perhaps that is why our two countries found each other long before diplomats made it official.
A friendship older than the handshake
The relationship goes back to 1962, a full 30 years before formal diplomatic ties. According to Israeli archival records, when China attacked, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to David Ben-Gurion asking for help, and Israel sent mortar ammunition. It stood by India again in 1965 and 1971 with hardware, training and surveillance support.
Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao established formal relations in 1992. Seven years later came Kargil, and the friendship was tested when it mattered most.
India had conducted its nuclear tests in 1998 and was under sanctions from several countries. Buying specialised equipment had become difficult. That is exactly when Israel chose to step forward. It sent 155 mm shells for our Bofors guns, Litening targeting pods and laser-guided bombs for the Mirage 2000H, and Searcher and Heron drones. Those drones gave Indian commanders their first clear, steady look at enemy positions from above. On 24 June 1999, a Mirage dropped laser-guided bombs on Tiger Hill, the first time the Indian Air Force used such weapons in combat.
Others held back. Israel delivered. A nation that had known its own share of vulnerability seemed to understand what India was going through.
From buyer to builder
After Kargil, the partnership grew quickly, especially in the air. The Phalcon radar on the A-50EI gave the Air Force its first airborne early warning capability. Israeli drones now watch our borders for all three services. SPYDER, developed by Rafael with major support from Israel Aerospace Industries, joined the IAF in 2017. And at Balakot in 2019, the Air Force used Spice-2000 bombs and Derby missiles.
The more important shift, though, has been from buying to building. Since 2006, DRDO and Israel Aerospace Industries have jointly developed the Barak-8 surface-to-air missile, which now serves the Army, Navy and Air Force. In October 2024, Bharat Electronics and IAI set up a joint company to support it. Barak-8 is designed with Israel and made in India.
Drones tell the same story. In Hyderabad, Adani Defence & Aerospace and Elbit Systems run India's first private UAV manufacturing facility, producing the Hermes 900 and Hermes 450, the first time these drones have been built outside Israel. In Bengaluru, the same partners make the SkyStriker. Indian scale and Israeli technology, working side by side.
India remains a major customer too. SIPRI data shows that between 2020 and 2024, India was Israel's largest arms buyer, accounting for about 34% of its exports, while Israel supplied about 11% of India's arms imports.
The next battle is about cost
The next challenge is already here. Groups based in Pakistan use drones to drop weapons and narcotics across the Punjab and Jammu borders. Hamas used cheap commercial drones to knock out observation towers and communications before its ground assault. Today, a drone worth a few dollars is often met with an interceptor that costs many times more. No military can sustain that equation for long.
India and Israel should tackle this together: low-cost drones of our own, and affordable ways to defeat the enemy's, through electronic warfare, guns, directed-energy weapons and cheaper interceptors. This is exactly where Indian mass production and Israeli innovation can make the biggest difference.
Inventing, not just buying
Israel's air defence was never bought off a shelf. It was invented, one surprise at a time, from the Egyptian bombers over Tel Aviv in 1948 to the drone and missile salvos of 2025. That same instinct carried its jets deep into Iran, and it is the instinct India needs for its own skies.
Our partnership has already come a long way, from mortar shells in 1962 to laser-guided bombs at Kargil, from imported radars to Barak-8 missiles built on Indian soil. The next step is to move beyond joint ventures and start inventing together, to change the economics of air defence itself. Two air forces shaped by difficult neighbourhoods and bound by decades of trust should take that leap side by side.
"Air power at that scale is never built overnight. It is built one hard lesson at a time."
Air Marshal (Dr.) Sanjeev Kapoor, AVSM, VM (Retd.) is a decorated Indian Air Force veteran and former Commandant of the National Defence Academy. He currently writes and advises on defense capabilities, aviation, and geopolitics.