Army chief: India seeing ‘trailers’ of future conflicts

New Delhi: India is already witnessing ‘trailers’ of future conflicts in the cyber space and unsettled borders as adversaries will continue with efforts to achieve their strategic aims, said Indian Army Chief General M.M. Naravane on Thursday delving into national security challenges emanating from China and Pakistan.

He said India faced multi-domain challenges and disputed borders with nuclear neighbours, coupled with state sponsored proxy war were stretching security apparatus and resources.

“We are already witnessing trailers of future conflicts. They are being enacted daily on the information battlefield, in the networks and cyber space. They are also being played along, our yet unsettled and active borders,” said Gen Naravane in his address at “Pragyan Conclave: 2022”, Indian Army’s webinar on Contours of Future Wars and Counter Measures. He said that it is “for us to visualise, the battlefield contours of tomorrow, based on these trailers.”

“If you look around, you will realise that the ‘sci-fi’ of yesterday, is the ‘reality’ of today.  We too have to ‘leap-frog’ to the future, skipping many stages, to an entirely new configuration,” said Army chief.

However, he said that nature of war in terms of force and violence, blood and gore, has not changed. It is for this reason, Army chief said that “hard power” has always been relevant, and will continue to play an important part in the future.

“In our own present context, the ceasefire on the Line of Control (with Pakistan) continues to hold, because we have negotiated from a position of strength,” he said.

“The developments on our Northern borders (with China), have also adequately underscored, the requirement of ready and capable forces, with an optimal component of boots on ground, backed by modern technology, to preserve our sovereignty and integrity,” he said.