As drones and electronic warfare reshape the battlefield, high-power microwaves offer India an unconventional weapon. Wars are becoming increasingly dependent on something that cannot be seen, heard or easily defended against: electromagnetic energy. Drones need electronics to fly while missiles need them to navigate. Disable the circuitry and an expensive weapon can become an expensive piece of inert metal. That is the promise of the high-power microwave array (HPMA), one of the more intriguing branches of directed-energy warfare. Instead of destroying a target with an explosive projectile or burning it with a laser, an HPM system floods the target with intense electromagnetic energy, interfering with, or in sufficiently powerful applications, damaging. the electronics that make it work. The weapon is invisible and potentially capable of engaging several targets without the logistical burden of conventional ammunition. Potent Weapon The technology is not entirely new. What is changing is its scale and sophistication. Modern HPMA systems use large numbers of antenna elements to generate high gain and steer beams electronically. Active phased-array architectures can direct electromagnetic energy rapidly towards different targets, while advances in waveguides, power generation and pulse technology are attempting to reconcile three notoriously difficult requirements: enormous power, extremely wide bandwidth and precise electronic beam steering. The modern battlefield is becoming saturated with small, cheap and numerous electronic threats. A swarm of drones can impose a disproportionate cost on a defender if each incoming aircraft requires a missile or another expensive interceptor. Directed-energy weapons turn that equation upside down. Their principal attraction is not simply destructive power but potentially deep “magazine depth” provided sufficient electrical power is available and they do not run out of bullets in the conventional sense. The physics is both elegant and unforgiving. An intense microwave field can couple into a target through antennas, cables, circuit-board traces and other conductive structures. These can behave as unintended receivers, channelling electromagnetic energy into sensitive components. The resulting voltages and currents can overwhelm electronic circuits, producing anything from temporary disruption to permanent component failure. The engineering challenge is considerable. Generating immense instantaneous power is only the beginning. The system must transmit it efficiently, focus it accurately, steer it towards a moving target and avoid crippling its own electronics. Researchers are therefore exploring both active and passive phased-array designs, including architectures capable of radiating pulsed waveforms with extremely high instantaneous power. If these technologies mature, they could have uses extending well beyond counter-drone warfare—to radar, electronic warfare, power beaming and high-throughput microwave and millimetre-wave communications. China has clearly recognised the strategic potential. Its military-industrial establishment has been pursuing high-power microwave technology alongside lasers and other directed-energy systems. Chinese research has increasingly focused on countering the proliferation of drones and other aerial threats, where the economics of conventional interception are becoming uncomfortable. Some reports have attributed extraordinarily high-power levels - running into the tens or even hundreds of gigawatts - to Chinese HPM developments. Such figures should be treated cautiously, since the distinction between peak pulsed power, radiated power and practical engagement capability is important. But the direction of travel is unmistakable. Chinese Interest China’s interest also extends to electronic warfare and potentially space. An HPM system capable of interfering with or damaging vulnerable satellite electronics could add another layer to anti-satellite capabilities, including threats to low-Earth-orbit constellations. That would be strategically significant in a world increasingly dependent on commercial satellite networks for communications, navigation and military connectivity. America is hardly standing still. The Pentagon has been investing in directed-energy systems as part of a broader effort to counter drones and other asymmetric threats. The deployment of advanced laser technology in the Indo-Pacific illustrates the strategic logic: future air and naval defences will increasingly combine missiles, guns, electronic warfare, lasers and microwaves rather than depend on any single weapon. India, meanwhile, is beginning to enter this contest with an indigenous proposition. Bengaluru-based Tonbo Imaging unveiled its Wavestrike high-power microwave directed-energy system at Aero India 2025. The system uses klystron-based technology to generate concentrated microwave energy and combines search-and-track radar with electro-optical systems to identify and engage targets. Its reported range is around 3km, with the ability to target individual drones as well as swarm formations. For India, the significance lies less in any single specification than in the emergence of a domestic directed-energy capability. The country faces an increasingly complicated security environment in which inexpensive drones can threaten military installations, airports, borders, ammunition depots and critical infrastructure. A weapon that can disable several electronic targets without creating the blast radius of conventional munitions is particularly attractive in populated or infrastructure-sensitive areas. There is also an industrial lesson. The development of HPM systems requires expertise in power electronics, microwave engineering, radar, semiconductor technology, software and advanced manufacturing. Success therefore depends not merely on producing a weapon but on building an ecosystem capable of continually improving it. The microwave war will not make missiles obsolete. Weather, range, power requirements, shielding and the complexity of real-world targets will constrain directed-energy weapons for years. But the battlefield is moving towards a simple proposition: whoever controls the electromagnetic environment can increasingly control the machines operating inside it. For India, Wavestrike is an early attempt to ensure that it is not merely a spectator in that contest. The next generation of warfare may well be decided by who can make the other side’s electronics go mysteriously dark. (The writer is a retired naval aviation officer and a defence and geopolitical analyst. Views personal.)
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