Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat stated on Friday that India’s ambition to become a regional power cannot rely on borrowed strength, and that the country’s battles must be won using homegrown equipment and technology. He said the segregated nature of India’s defence commercial industry ecosystem limits the country’s capacity to produce defence equipment while speaking at an event hosted by the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers.
“If we are to fight and win future conflicts, we cannot be import-dependent. As a result, indigenisation is the way forward, and we in the military are entirely committed to it “Rawat remarked. “The aim of our country to become a regional power cannot be based on borrowed strength… India’s battles must be won using Indian tactics “he stated
The pervasiveness of information and the rapid speed of technology progress are changing the fundamental nature of combat, allowing for innovative non-contact (non-physical contact) warfare in particular, according to the Chief of Defence Staff. “It encompasses information operations, theft of intellectual property rights, and economic inducements,” he continued, “all of which are backed up by propaganda in the age of false news to legitimise their acts.”
“With the acquisition of Rafales, S-400, ballistic missile defence system, Akash weapon system, and progressive replacement of the legacy air defence systems that we have in our inventory now, our armed forces’ air defence capabilities are on the verge of modernization,” Rawat said. However, the optimum solutions must be identified through acquisitions, optimization or up-gradation of legacy systems, and indigenous manufacture, he said, bearing in mind India’s macroeconomic characteristics and socioeconomic requirements.
“If we create our systems indigenously, we will be able to better utilise our economics or the financial allocations granted to the armed services,” the Chief of Defence Staff stated. The pursuit of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, big data analysis, drones, autonomous unmanned systems, militarization of space, cyber warfare, quantum communications, and social media manipulation are all leading to new threats today, according to Rawat.
He added that enabling technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing are being used to develop sophisticated autonomous weapons that will speed up the tempo of conflict. “While these technologies continue to shape the threat’s outlines, they also give us the opportunity to gain new military capabilities to our strategic benefit.” The construction of hypersonic gliders and alternative warheads capable of breaking into increasingly strong missile defence systems, according to Rawat, will improve the military utility of ballistic missiles during the next decade.
He went on to say that the armed services must be ready for a future fight with this new type of warfare.
