New Delhi, Oct 25 The Indian Air Force is closely monitoring the situation across the Indo-Pacific and focusing on boosting a specific set of capabilities including ability to operate effectively over extended distances to safeguard India’s national interests, Chief of Air Staff AP Singh said on Sunday amid growing global concerns over China’s increasing military muscle-flexing in the region.
In an exclusive interview to PTI, Air Chief Marshal Singh also said that the Indian military’s strategic posturing in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands provides a “critical springboard” for operations in the eastern Indian Ocean Region.
He emphasised India’s core priorities: safeguarding its national interests, sovereignty, and strategic autonomy while advocating for a rules-based open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.
“From the IAF’s perspective, this demands a specific set of capabilities. We need reach, persistent surveillance, air mobility, air-domain awareness, networked command and control, and the ability to operate effectively over extended distances,” he said.
“Our strategic posture in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands provides a critical springboard for operations in the eastern Indian Ocean Region. Aerial refuelling and airborne early warning give us the reach and awareness to operate far from our shores,” he said.
India, the US, Japan, Australia and several European nations have come with their respective Indo-Pacific policies in the last few years with a broad vision to ensure peace and stability in the region.
Without naming any country, Air Chief Marshal Singh also deliberated on the fast-evolving geopolitical upheavals in the region.
“The Indo-Pacific has become central to global security, and it is marked by growing military activity, strategic competition and contestation,” he said.
“Recent developments across the region, including in its maritime spaces, underline the need for vigilance, credible deterrence and greater regional cooperation,” he said.
The Chief of Air Staff, elaborating on the IAF’s preparedness, highlighted how his force is ramping up engagements with the air forces of like-minded countries to build “capability and trust” as “trust itself is an enduring contributor to regional stability.”
“As for preparedness, we closely monitor developments across the Indo-Pacific. Our approach is not threat-specific. We are building an IAF that can detect emerging challenges early, operate across multiple domains, and generate the required effects wherever India’s national interests demand,” he said.
He also said the IAF is “ready, and will remain ready” to safeguard India’s security. “We are also strengthening interoperability with friendly air forces through increasingly complex exercises and operational engagements.”
“Recent IAF deployments to Australia, Malaysia and Thailand have given us valuable experience in extended-range operations, area familiarisation, large-force employment and maritime air operations,” he said.
India has been working closely with Quad member nations of the US, Australia and Japan to ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific and the grouping has rolled out a number of initiatives in the last few years to this effect.
The Quad member nations announced the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) initiative in 2022 to improve monitoring of maritime activities across the Indo-Pacific.
Air Chief Marshal Singh also cited examples of the IAF’s engagements with friendly air forces to build capabilities.
“In February 2026, for instance, IAF Su-30MKI fighters operating from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands conducted an in-situ exercise with the Royal Thai Air Force over the Indian Ocean.
“They were supported by IL-78 tankers and our airborne warning and control aircraft. Engagements of this kind build both capability and trust, and that trust is itself an enduring contributor to regional stability,” he said.
“Alongside these partnerships, the capabilities I have already spoken of, from ISR (intelligence-surveillance, reconnaisance) and space-enabled systems to electronic warfare, precision weapons, unmanned systems and resilient networks, will matter just as much over the vast maritime spaces of the region,” he noted.
(PTI News)
