The Sandeep Unnithan Show

With Sourav Jha, CEO, D-Propulse

Sandeep Unnithan: Hello and welcome to Chakra News. We are starting a new series here called Lessons from War. It's an interesting time to be discussing this because we have one of the most fascinating conflicts that's playing out right before our eyes. It's a month into the Iran war with the US and Israel bombing Iran literally for a month, not achieving their military objectives. What are the lessons for India from this conflict, and to understand that, to analyse that, I have with me my friend Sourav Jha. Sourav is the CEO of D-Propulse, and he makes. Tell us what you make, Sourav. It is frontier technology which I can't wrap my head around.

Sourav Jha: So, D-Propulse is not just a propulsion company; it's also a company that will build systems around its proprietary air-breathing, rotating detonation engine technology. And so if you allow me, rotating detonation engines, they will be to the 2030s what the gas turbine was to the 1950s. So, this is what is called pressure gain combustion. So in the combustor, instead of, you can have two kinds of combustion where the volume expands, and the pressure drops or the volume is held constant, and you have pressure gain. This is the latter kind. The engines are simplicity itself, but the design is the tricky part. The design, the material selection, all that is a lot of, there's a lot of proprietary stuff that goes into that.

Sandeep Unnithan: And no moving parts.

Sourav Jha: No moving parts whatsoever, no moving parts whatsoever and much more compact than even a ramjet and maybe 15 to 25% more efficient in a thermal sense.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, this would be a successor to a ramjet engine?

Sourav Jha: Yes, it would be.

Sandeep Unnithan: Without going down the scramjet route.

Sourav Jha: This can be a successor to the scramjet also. So when you look at a scramjet, a scramjet does not actually accelerate the stage built around it once the booster has dropped off. So, if you boost a scramjet to Mach 6, it's likely to be at around that pace only and sustain it over a distance. Whereas this pressure-gain combustion may allow you to accelerate somewhat. So, if you boost one of our RDs to Mach 6, you might be able to accelerate beyond that, significantly beyond that. So, initially, we are looking at high supersonic speed applications.

Sandeep Unnithan:  Fascinating technology, and I'm sure it will work out the way you've planned for the 2030s. But to bring you back to the current conflict that you're seeing, sort of, were you surprised by the kind of conflict that you've seen? Non-contact kinetic ballistic missiles versus fighter aircraft, and as you were telling me a while earlier, AI-driven kill chains.

Sourav Jha: Unfortunately, no, Sandeep, I wasn't surprised. I imagined it to be like this. I knew that the number of targets prosecuted within the first 48 hours would be very large, the target set. Thousands,

Sandeep Unnithan: They're talking 5,000, 10,000, 15,000.

Sourav Jha: 2,000 in the first 48 hours itself, I think. And not surprising because the world has evolved in that direction. Right.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, explain to us how this works, and what are the lessons for us from this? That's the thing for us.

Sourav Jha: The general lesson is to get moving quickly.

Sandeep Unnithan: We are moving.

Sourav Jha: We are moving. To be honest, we are moving. We have also sort of embedded AI into our decision-making systems. We saw that in operation during Operation Sindoor. I mean, you know, it's been used in Operation Sindoor as well. I mean, Akash Teer also has an AI back end. Right. But we have to do more, and we have to do things more smartly, also perhaps later. Because the way it is being done now is highly energy and water-intensive. just basic AI. So being leveraged towards and data centres are being, you know, regional data centres are being used. So right now, what you're seeing is what I would call AI-driven. AI-driven, low-latency, kill web warfare. That is what has been unleashed on Iran. What would have been an air campaign spanning several months earlier.

Sandeep Unnithan: Like the Gulf War 1 or Gulf War 2.

Sourav Jha: Has been condensed into something that spans only a few weeks. Of course, it's not like the Iranians are. Because the Iranians have used their mosaic defence strategy. They have also. So, for the last five years, I've been saying that with the advent of what is called ubiquitous ISR, Internal Surveillance Reconnaissance Technology. If you stay in one place, you will be hit. You don't do cover and concealment properly; you will be hit. You congregate; you will be hit.

Sandeep Unnithan: That we saw in Ukraine and Russia. Yes.

Sourav Jha: Yes. You need to keep moving around. That old concept of, you know, concentrating yourself. To create a breakthrough. Concentrating formations are just off the table. Instead, you now have to concentrate on fire. Precision fire. Precision fire is driven in a many-to-many network. So you had the kill chain. Find, fix, target, attract, target, engage. Sort of somewhat linear. But now you have the kill web. Right. Where it's many-to-many. Right. And you are not yet in the kill mesh. Which is what we were discussing earlier. But you are in the kill web, certainly. So, you have this entire war as an exhibition of Palantir's and SpaceX's technology and the integration that has been achieved. So in this sense, you have months of AI-based analysis that have gone on. And these are tied in with Israel's own software, like AI-based software. Like, Lavender and Gospel.

Sandeep Unnithan: Gospel.

Sourav Jha: Lavender is for human targets. And assessing human targets, posture, et cetera. And the Gospel is more for finding fixed targets. Underground tunnels, fixed sites, et cetera. And assigning protocol. Coordinates. Priority to those. But those by themselves are not what could have allowed Israel to hit so many targets. Those are all running on Palantir's backend. It's an artificial intelligence platform. And the Americans are using various Palantir's software, like Maven, Gotham and Foundry, also.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, is this the first war that's been driven by Silicon Valley?

Sourav Jha: I mean, it's been driven by many technologies that have come out of there and are now integrated. I mean, they now own the architecture of the war. It's not that these are add-ons to an old architecture conceived only at the Pentagon. They have been involved from the ground up in creating this new architecture. For instance, a lot of the data is integrated at Titan sites, which are called tactical intelligence targeting access nodes run by the US Army. And the low latency is being provided by Musk's satellite network to a great extent. There are other networks as well. But, and then there is Starlink, Musk has Starlink and Starshield. In the case of Starlink, that's a commercial low-latency network. Yeah. That's connective tissue.

A lot of the data, by the way, is also processed via commercial channels. And Starshield is where the old US defence contractors, via the National Reconnaissance Office, have integrated their very specific SIGINT, ELINT, you know, incoming sensor payloads onto Musk's orbital platforms. He provides the station keeping. He provides the satellite bus.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, in a sense, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, these are the new generals of the 21st century war.

Sourav Jha: In a way, yes.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, where are Peter Thiel's and Elon Musk's?

Sourav Jha: Unfortunately, that is what we have to create. We have the DPSUs. They are a source of national strength.

Sandeep Unnithan: Of course.

Sourav Jha: We have the large private conglomerates also. But we must now allow the rise of a new defence.

Sandeep Unnithan: What do you mean by new defence?

Sourav Jha: New defence would be what Anduril is, what SpaceX is. Right. What Palantir even is. And they have to be, and the programme managers from the military have to operate in a very different manner.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, you are talking of civil-military fusion of…

Sourav Jha: At a very fundamental level. Typically, in the past, these things would have made people wary. But this is now a matter of national excellence and national resilience. It's not just a question of whether your AI-driven network is resilient. Or whether you have enough formations to throw at the enemy or something of that sort. The industrial, when you talk about strategic depth, the only depth of today is industrial depth, strategic depth, and that includes both software and hardware.

Sandeep Unnithan: How much capacity do you have? How much can you churn out?

Sourav Jha: And you must be clear about what you can import and what you can't import. If something is completely commoditised, you can get away with importing it.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, Sourav, are you suggesting that the present system is not fit for purpose, and you have to create a new architecture, or are you saying that you can build on the existing architecture?

Sourav Jha: See, everything is built on the past. The present system has its own strengths.

The challenge is to use and leverage all those strengths and add them together. Ultimately, it's a complex system which will have many elements in it. And if you have a deterministic approach towards AI-based warfare, then that will bring forth its own challenges and weaknesses. That may prove brittle also. I have always said this as a general rule that nothing ever goes away. So, everything has to, but the roles may change, and the way it is used may change. All those things have to be brought together.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, now you've given us the US-Israeli perspective on how they are fighting the war. What are the lessons that we can learn from Iran's response to this? They have held out for almost a month now. They have taken an enormous beating. But they are still able to generate missile launches. They have shut the straits of Hormuz. That's, of course, low tech. But the Iranian command and control is intact. What's the lesson for us when we are facing the western adversary, Pakistan, and the northern adversary, China?

Sourav Jha: See, Iran's decentralised networks are both a strength and a weakness. The mosaic strategy. They can sustain some pulses of power. They are talking about the 77th wave and the 78th wave.

Sandeep Unnithan: True promise.

Sourav Jha: True promise 4, and there might be a 5 also. But the point is that they could not because of the way the AI-driven kill web operated. With decision-making and target priorities being assigned quickly. So, Maven has already mapped out where the sites may be where the missile launches are going to operate.

Sandeep Unnithan: Pre-surveyed sites, it knows.

Sourav Jha: So, it's compressed the targeting cycle. And Gotham will tell you whether this site should be prosecuted first or that site should be. And Foundry will assign the effectors needed to prosecute these targets. All in a span of a few minutes at most. Maybe even less. So, that's how it's going. And there are feeds from Lavender and Gospel also into this thing. And the low-latency decision for even the human in the loop, which might be used. Starlink is providing the low latency network. So, what the Iranians did was they worked with the Russians to try to jam Starlink. And also to create grey terminals for their own communications with Russian handlers. While there is a heavy EW environment, of course. But now there are, I mean Musk has learned from it, and he has whitelisted terminals. He has built in much more resilience into the terminals themselves.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, they can't be jammed.

Sourav Jha: And you can't use grey terminals to counter the enemy. So, the Iranians are looking; they have buried a lot of fibre optical networks. They are using those. Those are not easy to do; those people are also trying to target them. In fact, if you send special forces into Iran, the Americans do, those communication nodes, buried nodes, may also be targets. In the vicinity of nuclear sites and all that. So, they have buried, we have also buried a lot of optical fibres.  So, that is the right lesson. The other is that we must understand that we are also, the Indian Army, for instance, is already experimenting greatly with ad hoc formations. Like the Shourya section and stuff like that. The era of 400 armoured units being massed together is over. Instead, you may have a mix and match. A few tanks, you had that earlier. But a lot and mixed with air, littoral warfare. These are for the ground; in our context, it is important. Because our enemies are right next door. The ground element will be important for us. We can't just do an air campaign against either.

Sandeep Unnithan: Like Israel and the United States.

Sourav Jha: Yes, Israel and the United States. So, that is one thing we need to keep in mind. But we also need to keep in mind that Israel's air defence network is proving very resilient against both ballistic missiles, even with manoeuvring warheads and Shahed-type drones. I mean cheap drones, all of which follow the same kind of form factor.

Sandeep Unnithan: One way to attack drones.

Sourav Jha: One way to attack drones. We have to build on our own strength, which is the supersonic cruise missile. We have to democratise high supersonic strike. Build mass in precision there.

Sandeep Unnithan: Democratise high supersonic strike. How would this have worked, say, if Iran had our capabilities of inflicting a large blow using supersonic weapons? How would the war have played out?

Sourav Jha: A little differently from this. Because the supersonic strike capabilities would have managed to get inside the latency of the AI-driven kill wave.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, you are saying that supersonic is the way.

Sourav Jha: Yes, supersonic and hypersonic. But these are frightfully expensive at the moment. These capabilities.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, when you are talking about lowering the cost of this, how would you do that? Is this what the RDE meant to achieve?

Sourav Jha: Yes, this is what the RDE can do. And this is not just us. The Raytheon, now called RTX, is pursuing the very same thing under the Gambit programme of DARPA. The Chinese are also pursuing this very same thing as well.

Sandeep Unnithan: And we had this capability, what, 25 years back? Almost a quarter of a century.

Sourav Jha: We had the supersonic capability. But then, you know, costs associated. But that's an extremely important capability. BrahMos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. is an extreme, is a national treasure actually for us. It's a national treasure.

Sandeep Unnithan: I completely agree, Saurav. Because we've had the three previous BrahMos DGs over here in the studio. We've spoken to them extensively after Op Sindoor. And I couldn't agree with you more on that point.

Sourav Jha: And the other thing is that what they are doing, what they have done is, they have shown the way. They have created an industrial supply chain, which we will also leverage. And they have improved the system considerably. I mean, this is not the old Yakhont or Onyx platform. This is a very different beast altogether. Seekers, materials, and a lot of innovation have gone into it. The command and control network, of course, needs to be brought into the AI-driven era.

Sandeep Unnithan: How would you do that for the BrahMos?

Sourav Jha: It can be done. The vector is agnostic to the C2. I mean, as long as you can communicate with the vector, you can do it. And, also, because you own the overall system, as BrahMos does, they can augment it with newer generation packages. The seeker of today is not the Seeker of the 2000s. It is a much smarter beast. It has MCON. It has much higher networking capabilities, etc.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, when you are looking at the, you know, democratising supersonic technologies, including the technologies that you are working on, the RDE, how do you see this playing out in the larger scheme of things? Like, there is Mission Sudarshan Chakra, which the Prime Minister spoke of last year. Is that going to have an offensive element as well? And that's going to be primarily these technologies?

Sourav Jha: These technologies have to have an offensive element. Because now, offence and defence are not to be seen in silos. Right. If you detect an enemy launch, you immediately try to prosecute it as well. Apart from trying to intercept the vector, you destroy the launch platform. So, that is what the Israelis and Americans did, right? They destroyed; they did all the left-of-launch capabilities.

Sandeep Unnithan: Hunting the launchers.

Sourav Jha: Yeah, the launchers. Trying to win the war at an operational and strategic level always matters. Going after the enemy's data centres, so that their AI latency falls. Going after the enemy's connective tissue. So, air-based warfare is now sine qua non. It has to, it will happen.

Sandeep Unnithan: How prepared are we for this?

Sourav Jha: That's a good question. I think there must be many things in the classified domain that we obviously are not privy to. But overall, I think we have to increase our posture there.

Sandeep Unnithan: You mean, increase the number of satellites, the constellation?

Sourav Jha: We have to think about the architecture and implement it very quickly. Because, see, we have, we can make those kinds of very, I mean, in terms of satellite technology, we are quite alright. I mean, ISRO's work over the years has been, and then DRDO also has worked on satellites for very specific purposes. The thing is, you have to get those up in the sky. And you have to get them up at a much higher cadence than what you're doing at the moment.

Sandeep Unnithan: Five launchers a year, ten launchers, won't matter.

Sourav Jha: There has to be a paradigmatic change, a paradigmatic change altogether in the way you approach space.

Sandeep Unnithan: And current organisation structures are not…

Sourav Jha: The structures are fine. I think they need to be more; AI needs to be infused into them. See, these three pillars of India that we have, DAE, ISRO and DRDO, each of them need to be strengthened, each of them needs to be infused with more financial support, manpower. But they must also become nodal agencies for the creation of ecosystems, strategic ecosystems, which they have done to an extent, no doubt. They have developed many tier one and tier two players who support them. But they have to help the new defence majors also, to grow. And like DARPA, for instance, was never like DRDO. DARPA was always a contract R&D agency.

Sandeep Unnithan: They were locating companies.

Sourav Jha: So, DRDO must increase its functions in that arena. Like, say, the technology development fund, that could be expanded. They have to become technology programme managers for the ecosystem at large, also.

Sandeep Unnithan: Rather than developing all technologies.

Sourav Jha: Some of them will develop because they have excellence in those areas, and they will also industrialise those. But they must also work in concert. Because there are many things. Why are we doing this as a private sector organisation? Because it brings a certain kind of flexibility. You have to, now it's a whole of nation approach, basically.

Sandeep Unnithan:  Of course. But how much time do we have, sort of, before someone else, what you've just told me, I mean, it's frightening the way warfare has changed over the last couple of months. We've actually been seeing that. Are we on notice now, here in India, that the time for fun and games and working at a leisurely pace is over? How much time before our adversaries figure out things and try to use this against us?

Sourav Jha: We are on notice anyway. We are definitely on notice. And our adversaries have already figured out a few things, which they have also tried in the last kinetic engagement.

Sandeep Unnithan: Sindoor. What's the next kinetic engagement going to look like?

Sourav Jha: The next kinetic engagement will look like China trying to do the same kind of thing to us. But we'll have counters in place for that because we already have the vectors, and we'll have even more. See, if you have depth in supersonic and hypersonic vectors, then China doesn't quite play this game with you. Even with some AI gorgon directing everything, the AI gorgon-type kill web, they cannot prosecute targets. So, if you have, say, a supersonic or a Mk III, but can be packaged into a palletised load container that can be put on a TATRA, that's much more difficult to detect and prosecute. And you have 5,000 of those around.

Sandeep Unnithan:  And you have depth.

Sourav Jha: And you have hardened industrial facilities that can build more in a year, maybe 1,000, with all the material supply chain already assured. Then the enemy will not want to start a war, and  Pakistanis, in any case, will not be able to withstand us.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, you are suggesting that we do with the Brahmos what Iran did with the Shahed? Mass produced it to a level where it becomes affordable, and use that as a weapon of deterrence. That would be your number one priority?

Sourav Jha: Non-nuclear deterrence. That is our main priority. That is our main mission priority. So, we supplement and complement the existing BrahMos, which has its strengths in mass.

Sandeep Unnithan: So, that's what the RDE technologies will do into the 2030s. Fascinating conversation with you, Sourav, as always. Thank you for letting us know about the road ahead, the way ahead for India. As Sourav says, we are on notice already; it's only a matter of time before our adversaries don't think of doing to us what is being done to other countries like Iran, for instance. Lots of lessons to take away from our conversation, Sourav and all the very best with the RDE engine. I will come to you separately on that. It's a fascinating technology that Sourav has been working on. Do follow his work; he is one of India's best-known writers, and now he is getting into doing stuff, building things, not just sitting in an armchair and talking about it, but he is actually building technology. All the very best with that, Sourav, and thank you for joining us here at Chakra.

Sourav Jha: Always a pleasure.

Watch the full podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sycSnyxUR4 .

Arjun Dev Singh

Arjun Dev Singh has a deep interest in defence, security, and strategic affairs. With a strong analytical lens and a passion for military and geopolitical developments, Arjun strives to bring clarity and context to complex national and international issues.