New Delhi, Sep 24 Stressing that “there is no safe place” in case of a conflict, CDS Gen N S Raja Subramani on Thursday said the country cannot afford to prepare for one conflict at a time as future battlefields would be increasingly simultaneous, connected and contested across multiple domains.
In his address at a defence conclave here, he also asserted that “speed of learning and adaptability” is a very important combat capability today, and whoever learns faster and adapts faster to the circumstances is going to win.
Gen Subramani, who assumed charge as the third Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) on May 31, gave a five-point mantra of ‘BUILD’ — an acronym encapsulating his vision to build a defence ecosystem that will keep up with “fast-changing character of warfare”.
According to the CDS, ‘B’ stands for battlefield, which is becoming more transparent, connected and contested across all domains; ‘U’ for understanding the economics of war, which is also changing; ‘I’ for integration of technology, data, and industry, which is becoming decisive; ‘L’ for learning and adaptation that will be key to winning future wars and provide combat advantage; and ‘D’ for delivery at scale that will determine strategic endurance.
“This in my view is the bridge between India’s defence ambitions and the battlefields of the future,” he added.
The character of warfare is changing “more rapidly than we can understand”, Gen Subramani said at ‘DefCon’ organised by News 18 network.
The battlefield is becoming more and more transparent and inexpensive, and persistence is making concealment more and more difficult. “If you are found, you will be fixed, you will be hit, you will be killed,” the CDS said.
He argued that the distinction between forward areas and rear areas “no longer exist”.
Now the battlefield has shifted from the “front to the rear to the depth, nobody is safe anywhere, the whole nation is involved in a war, not only the soldiers,” he said and cited the Russia-Ukraine conflict to buttress his point.
In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, use of drones has changed the nature of traditional warfare and expanded the battlefield to far beyond immediate borders of the two countries.
“There is increasingly no safer rear. There is no safe place in case of a conflict. And, the time gap between detection and engagement is collapsing. A sensor is able to see you, an algorithm is able to classify, a network can transmit, and a soldier on the ground or in the air can engage in minutes. What used to take hour has been compressed to within minutes or seconds. This is the battlefield we must prepare for,” the CDS said.
He underlined that the economics of warfare is also changing, and a relatively inexpensive drone can find a valuable target.
“We therefore cannot afford to prepare for one conflict at a time, the future battlefield will be increasingly simultaneous, connected and contested across multiple domains. So, whoever learns faster and adapts faster to the circumstances is going to win,” he said.
The conclave was attended by defence and strategic affairs experts, and senior officials.
Addressing at the event, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh cautioned that in the 21st century, the scope of national security has widened, and though “borders are fixed, but threats’ boundaries have become very fluid”.
Gen Subramani emphasised that Indian armed forces need to also focus on unmanned surface vessels and unmanned underwater vessels.
Underlining the importance of sustainability, he said “a weapon system has to be good on the first day, the 50th day, the 100th day of a conflict, whether it is in high-altitude, desert, hot climate or cold climate”.
The CDS said in every aspect things are changing faster than one is able to comprehend or able to adapt. Geopolitically, every moment, there are changes in the respective balance of power between various nations. Geoeconomically, it is being seen that conflicts in one part of the world are seriously affecting nations in other parts of the world, which are not even involved in the conflict, he said.
Besides, technology is both an equaliser — it is democractising availability of weapons even to non-state actors, making asymmetric means much more useful, and for India, this change is particularly consequential.
“We face a continental security challenge, a maritime security challenge, and an increasingly contested space, cyber, electronic and information warfare environment,” he said.
He also said some of the assumptions on which military operations were built, are increasingly becoming “obsolete”.
The CDS further said the current and future defence industry will not be judged by how much sophisticated weapons it is producing, it will be judged by “how quickly it can produce them, how economically it can produce them, how rapidly it can modify an existing system, and how long it can sustain them”.
“Networks must talk, data must flow, systems must interoperate, and algorithms must operate across services, and commanders must receive decision advantage rather than merely receiving information,” the CDS said.
He also pitched for creating a military system architecture where the “right information reaches the right person at the right time” while remaining secure and accountable, adding “we need to move from demonstration of artificial intelligence to warfighting”.
(PTI News)
