From Buyer to Builder: How India’s Defence Ties with Israel Are Quietly Reshaping Make in India
For decades, India’s defence relationships followed a familiar pattern. India identified a capability gap, a foreign supplier filled it, and the relationship largely ended with delivery and maintenance contracts. Israel was no exception. What has changed quietly, but fundamentally, is that India and Israel are no longer operating in a simple buyer-seller framework. The relationship has shifted towards manufacturing, industrial integration, and capability building inside India. This shift matters because it aligns national security needs with long-term industrial strength.
India’s early defence engagement with Israel was driven by urgency and capability gaps. Systems such as UAVs, surveillance radars, electro-optical sensors, precision-guided munitions and air defence components filled critical holes that other suppliers either could not or would not address quickly. Companies like Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Elbit Systems became deeply embedded in India’s military modernisation. But this model left India dependent on imports for spares, upgrades and wartime replenishment. It solved immediate problems but created long-term vulnerabilities.
The turning point came when India’s Make in India push intersected with Israel’s own strategic realities. Israel is a high-technology defence power but a small country with limited industrial depth. Sustained conflict, high operational tempo and global supply chain fragility exposed the limits of producing everything domestically. India, on the other hand, offered scale, cost efficiency, political reliability and an increasingly mature private defence sector. Unlike some traditional suppliers, Israel showed willingness to localise production and share industrial responsibility, not just final assembly.
This change is visible on the ground. Manufacturing facilities, joint ventures and supply chains now matter more than headline contracts. Adani Elbit Advanced Systems India established India as a manufacturing base for UAV platforms and subsystems, with India becoming one of the few countries outside Israel to host such production. Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems created an ecosystem for precision-guided weapons, electro-optics and advanced missile-related technologies. Public sector firms such as Bharat Electronics Limited work closely with Israeli partners on air defence systems, sensors and lifecycle support infrastructure. These are factories, trained workforces and vendor networks, not token localisation.
What India gains from this shift is not measured best in export headlines. The real value lies in industrial capability absorption. Through these partnerships, Indian firms learn how to build UAV airframes, integrate avionics, develop mission systems, manufacture seekers, work with advanced composites and meet tight military quality standards. Exposure to Israeli expertise in electronic warfare, ISR systems, AI-enabled targeting and sensor fusion accelerates India’s learning curve by years. This knowledge spills into civilian aerospace, electronics manufacturing and dual-use technology sectors.
The impact on India’s private defence industry is particularly significant. Israeli partnerships have helped Indian private firms move beyond screwdriver assembly into genuine production responsibility. Faster decision-making, tighter production cycles and battlefield-driven design philosophies contrast sharply with slower legacy PSU models. Companies such as Adani Defence & Aerospace and the Kalyani Group have used Israeli collaboration to position themselves as credible global suppliers, not just domestic contractors. This strengthens competition, raises standards and reduces systemic dependence on a single production model.
There is also a direct strategic benefit. Domestic manufacturing tied to Israeli technology improves India’s wartime resilience without expanding its military footprint. Local production of UAVs, counter-drone systems, electronics and missile subsystems ensures surge capacity during crises. It reduces vulnerability to sanctions, shipping disruptions or diplomatic pressure. Importantly, this resilience comes without binding India into treaty alliances or foreign basing arrangements.
This model matters for India’s future defence strategy because it offers a template that balances capability, autonomy and industrial growth. Unlike dependency-heavy relationships of the past, the India-Israel defence manufacturing partnership embeds capability inside India. It allows India to remain strategically independent while becoming industrially stronger. It also signals that India is no longer just a market, but a manufacturing partner trusted with sensitive systems and production responsibilities.
The transformation is quiet by design. There are no dramatic announcements of India building weapons exclusively for Israel. Instead, there is something more valuable taking shape. India is moving from buying defence capability to building it. Israel, in turn, gains industrial depth and flexibility. For India, the long-term payoff is a stronger defence industrial base, deeper technological competence and a more resilient national security posture. That is a far bigger gain than any single contract could ever deliver.
