'Emerging Frontiers: Technology Absorption in the Indian Army' book review: Changing contours, from market to battlefield

The book ‘Emerging Frontiers: Technology Absorption in the Indian Army’ by Colonel Akshat Upadhyay confronts a paradigm shift that has quietly revolutionised modern warfare. The book’s central premise is stark: the era when militaries drove technological innovation, giving the world GPS, the internet and microelectronics, technologies that have shaped the contours of the modern world as we understand it, has ended.

 

Today, the Indian Armed Forces face the complex challenge of absorbing and adapting technologies developed primarily for commercial markets.

 

The book methodically deconstructs what we mean by "emerging" and "disruptive" technologies, drawing from thinkers like Clayton Christensen, Carlota Perez and Balaji Srinivasan, to name a few, to establish theoretical foundations.

 

There is a distinction being drawn between the industrial warfare model, where platforms like tanks and aircraft performed specific and exclusive functions and today's capability-focused approach where hardware serves as a foundation for integrated networks of sensors, weapons and autonomous systems. For example, a drone is no longer simply an aircraft - it becomes a vessel for cameras, bombs, electronic warfare systems and cyber capabilities.

 

The author links absorption to innovation, arguing that merely induction of platforms or technologies does not lead to a sea change in the way militaries prosecute war.

 

The heart of the work lies in its comparative analysis of military innovation ecosystems. The American model, with institutions like the Army Futures Command, represents a massive bureaucratic apparatus attempting to channel commercial innovation into military applications. Israel's approach integrates military and civilian technology sectors so tightly that the boundaries blur. Ukraine's wartime innovation presents perhaps the most compelling case study, where groups like Aerorozvidka bypass traditional procurement entirely, rapidly adapting commercial drones and software for battlefield use.

 

Contemporary conflict observations reveal the book's most striking insights. In Armenia-Azerbaijan, Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas conflicts, we witness how rapidly commercial technologies, from consumer drones to artificial intelligence systems can reshape tactical and at times, strategic dynamics. The traditional twenty-year cycle from military laboratory to battlefield deployment has collapsed into months or even weeks.

 

The author's proposed Adaptive Integrative Framework attempts to synthesise these observations into a coherent model for technology absorption, emphasising organisational ambidexterity i.e. the ability to maintain current operations while adapting to innovation. His analysis suggests that successful military technology absorption requires soldiers to become not merely users, but creators, designers and regulators of the technologies they deploy. 

 

Name of the book: Emerging Frontiers: Technology Absorption in the Indian Army

 

Author: Lt Col Akshat Upadhyay

 

No of pages: 196

 

Publisher: Pentagon Press

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