One of the key lessons from the Russia-Ukraine conflict is that land will continue to be a key domain of warfare, especially when there are contested borders like in the case of India, Army chief General Manoj Pande said on Thursday.
On the situation along the border, General Pande said it was “stable”.
“I believe the victory markers have to be defined in the land domain, and hence the salience of the land domain. That is not to suggest when we look at enhancing our outcomes, through the jointness and integration that we wish to or must achieve with the other services and other stakeholders... it is as important. But, in my view, in terms of salience of land, the land domain is going to be extremely important especially in our case,” General Pande said in a fireside chat with Lieutenant-General Raj Shukla (retd). He was speaking at the curtain-raiser to the inaugural ‘Chanakya Dialogue’ being hosted by the Army, along with the Centre for Land Warfare Studies, next week.
The Chanakya Defence Dialogue 2023 will witness a congregation of eminent speakers from India and abroad and is planned to be a regular event in the years to come, the Army has said.
The Dialogue will be conducted in six sessions focusing on the themes of neighbourhood first — South Asia prognosis; Indo-Pacific — the decisive frontier; collaborative partnerships for security; how emerging technologies impact defence and security; Indian defence industry as enabler for collaborative capacity building; and comprehensive deterrence: the India way.
“Our aim is to complement the Raisina Dialogue,” General Pande said on the upcoming event. On the geopolitical situation, he said there were unprecedented changes in the world. “We are also seeing the centrality of national interests in global affairs. The importance of national security is growing in international affairs,” he said.
Stating that India’s profile was rising both regionally and globally, the Army chief said that with enhanced stature, there “will be additional responsibilities and also certain challenges”.
Asked about his tenure, he said the past year had been challenging yet satisfying. “As far as the operational situation is concerned, it is stable and we have dealt with internal security challenges the way we are supposed to deal with them,” he said.
On the ongoing transformation of the forces, the Army chief said it was based on five pillars, including technology infusion, reforming existing structures, jointness, and human resource management. “We are putting significant focus to leverage infusion of modern technology in the Army,” he said, adding that self-reliance was one of the key lessons from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“Modernisation and technology indication are central to our capability development programme. We have been focusing on the infusion of new technology. We have identified 45 niche technologies that we need to follow. We have defined philosophy for artificial intelligence and machine learning. Artificial Intelligence in terms of surveillance and image interpretation and the key is to interpret information quickly. In the field of robotics, we are looking at man-and-unmanned teaming,” General Pande said.
