The Indian Air Force’s two-front challenge: Requirements to get into mission mode

India faces the possibility of war on two fronts with its rivals Pakistan and China. A key part of a potential conflict would be an air war. India has an approved strength of 42 squadrons of multi-role combat aircraft but operates 31 squadrons as of fall 2025. Although the shortfall has received scholarly and media attention, the rationale behind the total approved strength itself remains unclear. The latter originated in Indian government calculations in the wake of its lost war with China in 1962. This article therefore conducts a discrete-time engagement-gated Monte Carlo model to analyze India’s requirements in a two-front war. In doing so, we adopt a data-farming approach owing to data scarcity while holding to the assumption that the Himalayan and South Asian airspace is occupied by near-peer air forces. Our findings suggest that India’s requirements vary between 67 and 79 squadrons to achieve a high probability of air superiority in a two-front conflict, with the requirement varying according to our assumption about China’s India specific force commitment.