India completed delivery of USD 375 million worth BrahMos shore-based anti-ship missiles to the Philippines in 2025. As of March 2026, Indonesia also signed a deal with India for importing USD 200 million worth of BrahMos, which again are the shore-based anti-ship version. Following India’s BrahMos cruise missile precision strikes in Pakistan during Operation ‘Sindoor’, numerous countries are in in advanced stages of negotiations or have expressed interest in acquiring the BrahMos system, given its ability to be launched from multiple platforms (land, sea, air) and its high speed (Mach 2.8 to 3.0) seen as a major strategic advantage. These countries include: Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei in Southeast Asia: Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman in the Middle East and Africa: Chile, Brazil, and Argentina in Latin America.
In the above backdrop a news report in foreign media on April 26, 2026 that BrahMos production in India has slowed by 50% is startling. This implies delayed deliveries to the Indian Navy, adversely affecting readiness of front-line warships; as well as setback to export of these supersonic cruise missiles. This slowdown in BrahMos missile production is being attributed to mass staff transfers across the BrahMos Aerospace set up. At least 56 employees, including master technicians, system engineers, senior technicians, assistant managers, senior system managers, executive officers, and senior executives, were abruptly reassigned across multiple BrahMos Aerospace facilities; shifting experienced staff from Hyderabad, the main integration complex, to Lucknow and Pilani (Rajasthan) plus additional transfers from Lucknow to Pilani, Nagpur to Pilani, and New Delhi to Pilani, with employees ordered to report by April 13, 2026.
The immediate adverse impact is felt in Hyderabad and Nagpur, where sudden removal of veteran technical experts is creating a skills vacuum across critical missile assembly and systems integration lines. Moreover, BrahMos Aerospace has reportedly informed the Indian Navy of potential multi-year delays in missile deliveries. Navy’s BrahMos orders include a March 2024 follow-on order for 220 BrahMos-ER extended-range ship-launched variants. That contract alone is valued at more than INR 23,000 crore (approximately USD 2.44 billion). These extended-range variants are intended for frontline warships including the Visakhapatnam-class and Kolkata-class destroyers, both of which form the spearhead of India’s high-end maritime strike and air-defence architecture. The ship-launched ER variant, designed for Indian Navy warships, often has a range of 450 km for maritime targets, with the 800 km version typically associated with land-based variants. The Indian Navy urgently wants the BrahMos ER, but the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has yet to clear its procurement.
Speculation is that the rapid expansion of BrahMos production to Lucknow and Pilani (Rajasthan) has political connotations; in that these states are ruled by the same political party as at the Centre. But the issue has raised broader questions about whether rapid industrial expansion without calibrated workforce transition planning can undermine the very strategic scaling objectives it was designed to achieve. For a program central to India’s maritime deterrence posture, production stability is itself a strategic asset, and organisational disruption can become operational vulnerability long before missiles fail to leave the production line. The BrahMos issue for India is not simply how fast the missile flies, but whether the industrial system behind it can maintain the tempo required for deterrence, exports, and sustained naval power projection. The government needs to address this issue on an immediate basis.
Concurrent to the above, another report of May 2, 2026 cites India’s decision to scale back the BrahMos-II hypersonic missile development. This is viewed as a calculated reassessment of cost-effectiveness within its evolving strike doctrine; deploying USD 12 million munitions against conventional targets undermines scalable deterrence architecture. The reassessment follows operational validation during Operation Sindoor, where existing supersonic and stand-off munitions achieved penetration of layered air defence systems, reshaping Indian threat modelling and procurement priorities across the Indo-Pacific theatre.
The report says that senior defence technologists involved in India’s hypersonic roadmap have reportedly emphasized that cost-per-kill ratios must align with operational realities rather than technological prestige, underscoring a shift toward sustainable, mass-deployable strike capabilities amid tightening fiscal constraints. This recalibration carries immediate implications for South Asian escalation dynamics, as hypersonic deployment timelines intersect with nuclear deterrence thresholds, compressing decision cycles and potentially destabilizing crisis management frameworks between India and Pakistan.
But this is an out of context naïve argument because India's hypersonic missile program, particularly the domestically developed Long-Range Hypersonic Anti-Ship Missile (LR-AShM), has been successfully tested and validated to engage targets at ranges over 1,500 km including one in a May 2026 test-firing. These systems are designed for high-speed, low-altitude maritime strikes, with future variants under development aimed at extending capabilities to roughly 3,500 km. These missiles, often referred to as "Mach-8 monsters," are designed to travel at speeds exceeding Mach 5+ (over 5 times the speed of sound). Developed by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), these missiles are designed to neutralize enemy warships and aircraft carriers, strengthening naval sea-denial capability.
The second reason for India recalibrating its hypersonic program has been mentioned in the report as friction with Russia over transfer-of-technology for critical scramjet propulsion systems. Here again, this issue never came up since BrahMos Aerospace was established on February 12, 1998, following an inter-governmental agreement signed in Moscow between India and Russia; a joint venture between India's DRDO and Russia's NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM}.
The fact is that if there is an undercurrent of India-Russia friction, overt diplomatic camaraderie notwithstanding, India must blame itself for leaning more towards the US. India stopped importing Russian crude under threat of US sanctions, because of which Russia is now not supplying oil to India on concessional rates as earlier. Moreover, Russia’s repeated offers of Su-57 fighter jets under Make-in-India with full transfer of technology has not been adequately reciprocated by India, aiming instead for additional 114 French Rafale fighter jets despite Dassault refusing to share the technology of the core software. This again is out of fear of US sanctions despite the fact that the US needs India as much, if not more. The same US fear has made India opt for dollar-trade, debunking trade in local currencies, while BRICS (with China and Russia major partners) prefer de-dollarisation. India’s support to the US and Israel in the US-Israel war on Iran and cossetting its relations with Iran has further aggravated the friction.
Little wonder, no defence deal with Russia was announced when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited India on December 4–5, 2025, for the 23rd India-Russia Annual Bilateral Summit, coinciding with the 25th Anniversary of India-Russia Strategic Partnership. India needs to review its foreign policy – siding with an unreliable US vis-à-vis Russia which has always stood by India. There no denying that the US wants to strategically kill Russia, but that is utopian.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has replaced the slogan of strategic autonomy with the semantics of multi-alignment but continues to kowtow to Washington and Beijing. India’s main focus at SCO remains at terrorism, which means little since the US and China back Pakistan. With America’s declining global standing in the current geopolitical paradigm, the Russia-India-China (RIC) Dialogue must be energized, especially with India accepting China’s demand to keep the border issue separate from progressing bilateral relations. But India remains charry of RIC again fearing the Donald Trump Administration.
Finally, on May 9, 2026, the DRDO announced successful long-duration test of an actively cooled full-scale scramjet combustor; test conducted at the Hyderabad-based Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), with the engine achieving run-time of 20 minutes. This places India at the forefront of hypersonic capabilities. But with the need to catch up with China’s hypersonic capabilities, should we scale back the BrahMos-II hypersonic missile development or boost it with indigenous scramjet capabilities?
The author is an Indian Army veteran. Views expressed are personal.
