Chandigarh, December 8

While information warfare has assumed a central space in the spectrum of conflict, involving military as well as civilian establishments, India remains dependent on foreign countries for its information warfare requirements.

Stating this while moderating a session on ‘Information Warfare — The New Face of War’ at the Military Literature Festival here today, former Vice Chief of the Army Staff Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi stressed the need for indigenous equipment to counter the danger of subversion through electronic means. Today every piece of equipment has an electronic component that can be targeted.

Stating that artificial intelligence and robotics will increasingly influence lives, Lt Gen Oberoi said information warfare was not just about gadgetry but also about what military people did in battle or what civilians did or didn’t do in their day to day lives. Just like air superiority was the dominating factor in war, electronic or information superiority will be the winnable factor in the next war, he added.

Lt Gen RS Panwar, former Commandant, Military College of Telecommunication Engineering, said we needed to come up with the requisite doctrines and structures to conduct information warfare. Besides skill development of personnel, we needed to develop capabilities in tune with what was happening in the world, he said.

Lt Gen SP Kochar, former Signal Officer-in-Chief, said information warfare should be embedded with other operations of war.