Mhow: India stands for peace but should not be taken to be a pacifist, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan said on Tuesday. He was addressing the two-day ‘Ran Samwad’ conclave at the Army War College in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh.
“Peace without power is utopian,” the general said while making it very clear that Operation Sindoor is still on.
“India has always stood on the side of peace. We are a peace-loving nation, but don’t get mistaken, we cannot be pacifists. I think peace without power is utopian. I like to state a Latin quote which translates, ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’,” Gen Chauhan said.
The seminar brings together serving military professionals to the forefront of strategic dialogue. Defence minister Rajnath Singh will deliver the plenary address on the final day.
“Operation Sindoor was a modern conflict from which we learned a number of lessons, and most of them are under implementation, some have been implemented. The operation is still on. We are not here to discuss Operation Sindoor. We are here to discuss something beyond Operation Sindoor,” the CDS said, highlighting four major trends he believes will define future conflicts.
“I hope this particular seminar, apart from technology, will also focus upon what kind of wars will happen in the future, the background for this,” he said.
“In my view, there are four essential trends that I foresee. First, there is an increased propensity amongst nations and governments to use force, and this is happening because political objectives today can be achieved by short-duration conflicts,” the general said.
“The second trend which I see is a lack of distinction between war and peace, this particular era, which we knew in the past of declared wars, I think that’s all over. Contemporary warfare today is a kind of continuum of five C’s – competition, crisis, confrontation, conflict and combat, between wars,” he added.
“The third important thing is importance of people. In the past wars, because of territory and ideology, people and soldiers were sacrificed. The fourth important trend I think we can debate is the matrices of victory and how we perceive victory. In the past, matrices of victory were probably defined by losses inflicted in terms of men and equipment. In 1971, we had 95,000 Pakistanis captured. But in today’s warfare, probably the new matrices of warfare or victory are the speed and tempo of operations, effects of long-range precision strikes,” the CDS said.
General Chauhan stressed the need for India to align its defence preparedness with its vision of becoming a developed nation.
“As a Viksit Bharat, we also need to be ‘Shashastra’, ‘Suraksit’ and ‘Aatmanirbhar’. Not only in technology, but also in ideas and in practice. Hence, there is a need to increase awareness on all fragments of our society on doctrinal and conceptual aspects, that’s the academic pursuits of how war is fought and practical and actual war fighting techniques and tactics,” he said.
General Chauhan had said on Monday that India’s response to future security challenges must be unified, swift and decisive in view of technological advancement and rapidly changing nature of war-fighting across land, sea and air.
He underlined the need for greater synergy among the three services as part of preparations to enhance India’s military might.
“At a time when the character of conflict is evolving rapidly across land, sea, air, cyber and space, our response must be unified, swift and decisive,” he said.
