Chief of Defence Staff Anil Chauhan on Tuesday said that losses suffered in a military operation are not as important, but important is the final outcome.
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00:00Chief of Defence Staff Chauhan is speaking on the setbacks and losses,
00:04says professional forces are not impacted by losses.
00:07Let's listen in to the CDS.
00:09War and warfare is very, very unpredictable.
00:14We also probably understand the consequences of war.
00:17So that I think is important.
00:19Although lost by Pakistan on 10th of May at about 1 a.m.,
00:24its aim was to get down India to its knees in 48 hours,
00:28and multiple attacks were lost.
00:31And in some manner, they have escalated this conflict,
00:36which we had actually hit only terrorist targets,
00:39but also into the military domain.
00:41From their perspective, it would have been rational in the sense
00:43they would have said that you use military means to hit these targets.
00:47But it was also rational on their part,
00:49operation which they thought they'll continue for 48 hours,
00:52hold it up in about 8 hours on 10th.
00:55Then they picked up the telephone and said they wanted to talk.
00:58And I think that the rationale behind this coming,
01:02the realization coming in, stemmed from two facts.
01:05That one is they must have assumed that if they continued this mode,
01:10they were likely to lose much more.
01:12So hence they picked up the telephone.
01:13And second thing, since they had stuck us at multiple fronts,
01:17they still did not have the benefit of understanding what they had stuck.
01:20So they must have thought they must have stuck.
01:23And hence, it's time to talk now.
01:25And if they don't, they'll tend to lose both.
01:28So these were the two factors which would have made them to take.
01:31But it's only after, say, one or two days,
01:33they would have realized that all their kind of attacks,
01:36which they had launched against us, had not fortified,
01:39and they had all kind of failed.
01:41And so I think this is what had happened.
01:46Second thing is, in the armed forces also demonstrated a lot of rationality.
01:52We had informed Pakistan on the day we had done these surgical strikes on 7th.
01:57We had done it from 1-1-0-5, that's at about 1 o'clock to about 1-30.
02:05And five minutes later, we had picked up the Director General of Military Operations
02:10to say that we have done this.
02:11And we have hit only terror targets.
02:14Military establishments have been out of the purview of the strikes.
02:18And we have ensured that there are no collateral damage, especially civilians.
02:22And we need to talk to each other.
02:23So that was, I think, a rational decision.
02:25And subsequently, when there was a rhetoric from Pakistan,
02:30we also said that in case Pakistan hits us, hits military establishments,
02:35we are going to hit them back, we'll hit them harder.
02:38And if they stop, we are going to stop.
02:40So when Pakistan did ask for talks and de-escalation,
02:45we also at some point of time, not immediately, at some point of time, I would say,
02:49did accept what they were saying.
02:51So this is what I thought was the political part of war.
02:58And now I'll talk about the combat part of war.
03:01That's the second part, which I said it had four constituents.
03:04That's the combatant, the yodha, the battlefield, combat zone,
03:08where the fight takes place.
03:10It talks about technology.
03:11And fourth is about tactics.
03:13So these are the four things, I think, important part of warfare.
03:18So combatants, actually, today, earlier we all thought people in uniform,
03:24organized military forces are part of combat.
03:27But today we have paramilitary forces, mercenaries, contractors, terrorists,
03:32jihadis, private companies with technology.
03:35So we had heard long back about the Wagner Group, similarly Blackwater Groups.
03:41A lot of security companies provide armed security, mission support,
03:45and risk management services not only to corporate houses but also governments.
03:49So it's not that combatants are only uniformed people paid for by the government.
03:55It's different.
03:55And today combatants may also include citizens, neutral citizens or nations or netizens, rather.
04:03And they can take part independently or otherwise based on their support to any ideology
04:08in cyber warfare, psychological operations, media outreach, et cetera.
04:12So the concept of this war will be only conducted by combatants which are paid for the government
04:18is getting diluted slowly.
04:21There are other players who are coming into fray.
04:23And second thing is this combat zone.
04:27This has expanded phenomenally.
04:30So what we see that not only we have land, air, traditional domains and maritime,
04:36but we also now have space, cyber, electromagneting domain.
04:41A lot of activities took place, actually, between both of us over four days
04:45on the electromagneting domain.
04:47Activities also took place in cyber domain.
04:49We also had a lot of activities in the domain of perception management, information war,
04:55or maybe you can call it cognitive warfare, in which the mindscape shaping the mind of the people
05:00is more important than the landscape, what happens on land, et cetera.
05:05We also saw the expansion of battle space on the traditional domains.
05:09So initially you could see war and warfare, contact warfare, you know, within five or ten kilometers.
05:16Today we expanded that battle space phenomenally.
05:19Then we see the whole length and breadth of Pakistan could be under coverage of India's weapon systems,
05:24not for any other engine, but very, very deliberate precision strikes.
05:28Some strikes could be as narrow as two meters or three meters square,
05:32at ranges greater than, say, 300 kilometers.
05:35That's what has been demonstrated.
05:38So, what I said, combat, combatants, combat zone,
05:42these are the kind of changes which are taking place in the future.
05:45And I'll dwell upon now the more important part on technology,
05:49which I think is becoming very, very important.
05:53And the warfare today is at the cusp of, if I could say, a third revolution in military affairs.
05:59The first revolution in military affairs was something to do with manure warfare,
06:02which came about because of advances in ground mobility and air mobility.
06:08You could transport people faster.
06:10It also was there because of long ranges.
06:13The second revolution in military affairs was net-centric warfare,
06:18in which battlefield transparency, situational awareness, this became important.
06:23Information dominance became important.
06:25That came about by the U.S. armed forces because of advances in communication technology
06:31and computer technology and ICT.
06:34And today we are at the cusp of third revolution in military affairs,
06:39which I've termed as convergence warfare,
06:43because what we are seeing is not one technology,
06:46but there are a number of technologies which are affecting warfare,
06:49presently, and they'll happen in future.
06:51All of these are heralding a new change in warfare,
06:56which is bringing about a change which is disruptive and non-linear.
07:00And it's actually occurring at a pace which is unprecedented.
07:04And this technology range from sensor, advanced materials, propulsion, hypersonics,
07:09artificial intelligence, big data, advances in cyber space, all of them.
07:15But what happens is generally we take all these advances in technology
07:19and consider them as one fact.
07:21What I will do is I'll try and identify four trends in these technologies
07:26to see where warfare is progressing further.
07:29So the first trend which I talk about is sensor technologies.
07:34And this is ushering in a new level of battlefield transparency
07:38and situational awareness in the field of warfare.
07:41You see, we have natural and man-made sensors.
07:47It's a competition between these two, if you have it to say.
07:50So we are about 8 billion people on this earth.
07:54So we have 16 billion eyes, actually, sensors.
07:57We're seeing each other.
07:58Today we may be having more than 8 billion artificial ISR sensors operating.
08:04All of us having a mobile phone, which has got a camera,
08:07you've got a laptop, iPad, et cetera, which has got a sensor.
08:11There are a large number of cameras over here.
08:13There are sensors of this room which are capturing those images.
08:16You go outside on this road, there are a number of sensors over here.
08:20There are sensors deployed in air.
08:22There are sensors deployed in space.
08:23There are sensors deployed undersea.
08:25There are sensors deployed in...
08:27So it's not only the range of sensors,
08:29but the deployment of sensors is much more than what natural way you can do it.
08:35It's also the type of sensor.
08:36We only had, say, five sensors, that is, touch, hearing, smell, vision, and taste.
08:42That's all.
08:43But today the kind of sensors we have is seismic, chemical, biological, optical, SAR, infrared, LN, AIS, acoustics, ultrasonic, magnetic, electromagnetic, quantum, atomic, radio frequency.
08:57So we have overtaken nature, actually.
08:59In numbers, quality, deployment, all of you.
09:02What is this going to lead us to?
09:03This is going to lead us to absolute transparency.
09:08So today there cannot be anything like surprise in battlefields.
09:13It's everything is open.
09:14And second thing I think today when we talk about if there's no surprise, then the only way you can do it is by deceiving him probably.
09:22You'll have to think of different kind of techniques in warfare.
09:27The second trend I think is related to speed, velocity.
09:32I call it celerity, and this segment is driven by advances in hypersonics, whether it is guide or cruise.
09:40We saw that BrahMos missile at 2.8 Mach.
09:43You can have today missiles at N7, N7, N8 Mach flying.
09:48We also have fractional orbital systems.
09:51Along with this, what's happening is still technologies are coming in.
09:55So it becomes very difficult to detect.
09:58In any case, you start having drones, which are very, very small, and you can have drones in swarms.
10:03So there are no radar systems which are actually made to track large aircrafts moving at a reasonable speed of one or two max.
10:10Then you have one-hand hypersonic weapons, which are following different kind of trajectories.
10:14And on the other hand, you have drones, which are as small as this, and there are no radars which can actually track it.
10:22And then you can move it in swarms, et cetera.
10:24So what's happening is all this in combination, lower radar signatures, high speeds, and intelligent routing, et cetera,
10:34are making these kind of threats invisible, inaudible, undetectable, and hence, untargetable.
10:40So you're kind of vulnerable everywhere.
10:42So on one end, we can see the range of this action.
10:48So what you're introducing is kind of non-linearity and ultimate, ultimate form of non-linearity.
10:54You can have a contact battle at one or two kilometers, and then you can have a battle which is being fought at 300 kilometers or 250 kilometers.
11:03So that's the kind of unlinearity.
11:05And with impunity, you can do it.
11:06Because it's very difficult for the opposition to actually devise a system to guard against it, or to hit against it,
11:12unless it's synchronized systems in a very, very effective kind of a manner.
11:17So it's, like I said, ultimate non-linearity and expansion of battle space.
11:24So it will also probably, maybe, we'll have to think of large platforms like large ships, tanks, et cetera, because these become very vulnerable.
11:33And your planning and preparation coordination for such kind of defensive acts will also require a lot of thought in the future.
11:42We may have to require a layered kind of resilient defenses in depth to guard against these kinds of threats.
11:48The third important trend, which I see, is something to do with robotics and automation.
12:00And this includes unmanned systems, automated, autonomous systems, along with, now you have manned and unmanned.
12:09You have one manned aircraft with, operating two or three unmanned aircrafts along the lake.
12:14One manned tank with two, three unmanned kind of things.
12:17Operating in a collaborative kind of an environment.
12:21So you also will have an exoskeleton system that enhance human performance today.
12:28So you can lift up one ton of weight because you're having an exoskeleton system.
12:32You can run faster than any other human being.
12:36So tomorrow you'll have systems like this.
12:41So this is going to increase efficiency and reduce human risk during warfare.
12:47And hence, there will be propensity to use force because that human element of warfare, that gets reduced.
12:54So what's going to happen is in recorded history, always there was combat between always two human beings.
13:00That's what has happened.
13:01So there could be, you could be better armed, you could be with a sword, I could be with a lance, you could be with a helmet, I could be with a shield.
13:11You could be on a charger, I could be on an elephant.
13:13But essentially, the war was between two human beings.
13:18But today we are at a cusp when war could be between human beings and machines.
13:21And tomorrow, it could be between machines and machines, and machines that are autonomous, intelligent, and take decisions.
13:30The fourth kind of trend, which I call as data-centric warfare, that is because of a large amount of advances in technologies, artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, large language models, edge computing, et cetera.
13:46So this is going to be a large amount of data and data analytics.
13:52So what we are going to happen is, when we said, you know, in the third, second generation warfare, there was net-centric warfare, in which we relied on information superiority over the enemy.
14:03Today, you are relying on decision superiority.
14:04So in a war engagement, if there were ten decisions to be taken, for application of force, one after the other, in each and every engagement or decision of mine, I will be better than yours, because this is based on better and better data and decisions.
14:20So hence, I will beat every cycle of decision from the adversary.
14:23So this would lead to digitization of the battlefield and intelligentization of the battlefield in some manner.
14:32And this is going to affect the other three elements, which I said earlier.
14:35Sensors, so that the data from that can be analyzed.
14:39Robotics, so that automated kind of a kill chance can be produced.
14:43Celerity, speed, because unless things are networked, you will not be able to pick up things faster.
14:48So this is going to produce another kind of revolution warfare.
14:53Which, as said, will lead to cognitive or decision superiority.
14:58So, something similar.
15:02Green shoots of that were visible in Operation Sindhu.
15:05So, of course, there are many other technologies which are impacting warfare.
15:10They may be in space, cyber, quantum, many other.
15:13But I have just tried to outline four important trends in technology.
15:20In each of them, there could be hundreds of technologies.
15:22And that is going to affect warfare in future.
15:25So, I said this third revolution in military affairs is known as convergence.
15:30Because a number of things are converging together to revolutionize warfare.
15:34So, because it's a convergence of data-centric warfare, celerity, and remote-centric warfare.
15:40It's a convergence of kinetic and non-kinetic, including cognitive, into one domain.
15:46It's a convergence of first revolution in military affairs with second and third.
15:50So, we're not fighting only war, which is in the third revolution.
15:53But there's a warfare, which is many more warfare.
15:55And net-centering also happening, taking place at the same time.
15:58It's a convergence of tactics, operational art, and strategy, because of the extreme non-linearity I have spoken about.
16:06So, all type of elements, this is being done, elements is being fought.
16:10So, it's going to converge old and new domains of warfare.
16:14Then I say new domains in cyberspace, electromagnetic spectrum, cognitive with old domains, like land, sea, and maritime domain.
16:21It's going to converge time and space, both of them.
16:24So, these are the kind of changes we may foresee in the future.
16:29And along with it, what did we see?
16:35Did we see elements of this or green shoots of this in Operation Sindhu?
16:40Yes.
16:41And to us, I would say that this was the kind of first non-contact warfare which we fought.
16:47We didn't see each other.
16:48We saw it either at radars or at different ranges,
16:51except for what was happening on the line of control.
16:54And it was a mix of kinetic and non-kinetic.
16:58When I say non-kinetic, that happened in the information domain.
17:01That happened in the cyber domain.
17:03And, of course, there was a kinetic operation where destruction was being caused to each other.
17:08It was also non-linear in nature.
17:10So, there's something happening on the line of control
17:12and something happening as far back as Noor Khan or Sargoda.
17:17So, at huge distances from the border, simultaneously, non-linearity.
17:21It was networked.
17:23It means at least the defensive part of it.
17:25You must have read about it,
17:26that we had networked our air defense architecture of the Air Force and Army
17:30and the maritime air defense architecture.
17:34They go on across the air and IACCS so that they could give one comprehensive kind of a picture.
17:40So, you can provide a layered kind of a dream.
17:42So, better information, faster information available to our side.
17:47We had also tried to kind of network or counter US system, which we were countering drones.
17:51Not so much, but some kind of, in this 7, 10, 15 days, we were able to do that.
17:59So, that I think, it was also multi-domain.
18:02The first time, it means we were using warfare was in maritime, land, air, cyber, space,
18:10electromagnetic spectrum.
18:11It means all this electronic warfare battalions which were deployed,
18:15which are said that counter US systems,
18:17they were able to negate that kind of a threat which was coming in from Pakistan.
18:19So, this was happening there.
18:22And some green shoots of even intelligent kind of warfare.
18:26So, how AI can be used to do some kind of predictive analysis.
18:30So, this was happening.
18:32And last but not the least of combat, I said there's a four element.
18:36The fourth element I talked about was about tactics and strategy
18:39and how that's getting affected.
18:42That's about, I have spoken about in parts.
18:45That's about demassification of the battlefield.
18:47And yet, integration of capabilities of diverse nature.
18:51It's leading to ultimate non-linearity and defenses in depth.
18:56I've spoken about vulnerability of large platforms and establishments.
19:01And I've talked about importance of deception over surprise.
19:04So, these are the kind of changes which we'll have to live with in future.
19:10In my concluding remarks, I can only say that Operation Sindhur created a kind of a history of sorts
19:16as far as air warfare is concerned.
19:20Successful operations were carried out against an adversary which was almost equally massive,
19:26if you can even say.
19:27It was not operations against an adversary which had no air force or no air defense worth it solved.
19:32It was against an adversary and against that, if you're able to carry out relentless operations
19:38deep inside with precision and offensive intent, I think that was a big achievement.
19:45And we were able to penetrate those air defense networks with impunity and at will.
19:49So, history, because I'm saying this is because exhibition of this particular superior air power was demonstrated
19:59against someone which already had some good capabilities in this particular field.
20:04So, that was all I had to say about future warfare and wars.
20:08I hope you get a fair idea as to how warfare is evolving.
20:13And this particular preparedness of the armed forces is first about thinking.
20:20We should be able to understand where warfare is going so that we can change our tactics,
20:27get your equipment profile right, understand, have your organizational structures right,
20:32have your doctrines and concepts right.
20:34So, in this particular thought process, in this whole, it's not the job of only the armed forces,
20:40people like me, or this young generation who are going to be doing this probably after five or ten years,
20:46which is also the role of veterans, the academia.
20:49Everyone is the whole of nation to understand where we are evolving, what's happening,
20:54so that we are better prepared as a nation to take on these kind of challenges.
20:59Thank you, everyone, for this patient hearing.