New Delhi: India is ready to safeguard its interests, Air Chief Marshal A P Singh said on Sunday, while calling for vigilance and greater cooperation amid recent developments in the Indo-Pacific region.
His remarks were promoted by global concerns over China’s increasing military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.
“The Indo-Pacific has become central to global security, and is marked by growing military activity, strategic competition and contestation. We are closely monitoring the developments across the Indo-Pacific. The Indian Air Force (IAF) remains committed to safeguard India’s interests in the region. Recent developments call for vigilance, credible deterrence and greater regional cooperation,” he told PTI.
“For India, the primary objective is clear – to protect our national interests, sovereignty and freedom of action. We are building an IAF that can detect emerging challenges early, operate across multiple domains, and generate required effects,” he added.
The outgoing air chief referred to Operation Sindoor and said India’s strikes on terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir after the Pahalgam terror attack “were a validation of the capability-centric approach the IAF has been pursuing”.
“We have moved from thinking in terms of individual platforms to thinking in terms of capability, where every aircraft, every sensor, weapon and network is integrated so that the combined effect is far greater than the sum of the parts,” he said.
In his first comprehensive articulation on the theaterisation plan, Singh said the IAF is not viewing it as an exercise to permanently divide fighter assets geographically, advocating instead for a structure built around India’s specific security requirements rather than replicating foreign models.
The guiding principle for theaterisation should be “centralised control” where necessary and “decentralised execution” where appropriate, he said. He cited ongoing conflicts in various geographies to assert that air power can decisively shape military outcomes.
He also said the “transformation of this scale” should be implemented in phases so that operational readiness is “never compromised” and warned against the “trap” of trying to predict the future battlefield with “excessive certainty”, as reported by Hindustan Times.
Theaterisation refers to placing specific units of the army, the navy and the air force under a theatre commander. Such commands are to be led by an officer from any of the services, depending on the roles assigned.