Bengaluru: While Washington had superior technology and strike capability, Tehran used geography to its advantage, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen Anil Chauhan said during a fireside chat at the Ran Samwad seminar on Thursday evening.
“….. these technologies may have allowed the Americans or the Israelis to win specific combat missions at operational level, at tactical level, but somewhere in the larger picture, it has to be realised that geography and strategy is important. Iran probably has used that,” he said, as reported by The Print.
He pointed to how Iran used the geography – the Strait of Hormuz – to its advantage, saying that the country was probably preparing for such kind of a conflict, having built many underground facilities and stored a large number of missiles.
“….. in fact, they also targeted American facilities in those Gulf countries very precisely. Nobody thought they would target military targets in the Gulf countries in that sense,” Gen Chauhan said.
The CDS also spoke on how India is reviewing the mandated reaction time of its military to the breaking out of hostilities given the changing nature of warfare and keeping regional dynamics in mind.
The Indian military is incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a major way to not only process
multi-domain information, but to make the right decision in the shortest time possible, he highlighted.
Changes have also being brought into the equipment profile of the forces with focus now at 70 percent on supporting manoeuvre warfare, 20 percent on net-centric warfare, and 10 percent on data-centric or intelligent warfare, Gen Chauhan said.
This replaces the earlier thought process of 30 percent old, 40 percent contemporary and 30 percent niche technology. “The mindset is changing,” he said.
While speaking about modern warfare, the CDS said that outcome is dependent on two things – timely decisions and the correct decisions.
“These are two things which are important. And they are both interrelated. You can’t have a correct decision being taken late. It will not work. So it has to be timely and it has to be correct and the outcome will be favorable to you. It is here where Artificial Intelligence is going to help us to take a timely and correct decision,” he said.
Net-centric warfare is moving to data-centric to intelligent warfare, he explained.
“When we say net-centric warfare, we are trying to connect the sensors to the shooters. And over a period of time what has happened, there are a plethora of the sensors are ubiquitous. Hundreds and thousands of sensors of various types are available, Gen Chauhan said.
“A step ahead would be intelligent warfare in which maybe AI can be predictive and you can forecast. Hence you will be able to predict things faster. And then your decisions are taken much before you even observe a particular thing. So here artificial intelligence will run through all, net-centric, data-centric and intelligent warfare,” he added.