Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 1

Army Chief General MM Naravane on Wednesday said the Army would lay equal focus on the country’s borders with China and Pakistan.

“We have been paying attention in the past to the western front, but the northern front requires equal attention. It is in that context we are doing capability development and enhancement on our northern borders, including the Northeast,” the Army chief said after inspecting a guard of honour outside South Block.

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On settling the boundary issue with China, he said: “We have a Line of Actual Control. The border question is yet to be settled. Progress has been made in maintaining peace and tranquility.”

On the border with Pakistan and threats from across the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, General Naravane said, “Whatever threats we have, we keep analysing them. This is a continuous process. We analyse threats and act accordingly.”

The Army Chief termed modernisation of the force as one of the key priority areas. “We have a long-term perspective plan based on the analysis of likely threat. Threats keep changing and we change our plan.”

New Delhi, December 31

In a stern warning to Pakistan, new Army Chief Gen Manoj Mukund Naravane on Tuesday said, “India reserves the right to preemptively strike at sources of terror, asserting that a new normal in the country’s response mechanism to acts of cross-border terrorism has already been emphatically displayed.”

Gen Naravane also said the Army would enhance combat capabilities along the border with China so that it was fully prepared to deal with any security challenge.

“The threat remains from both northern and western sides. Over the last many years, we have been concentrating on our western borders while our northern border was at a little lower in priority. There was a need to rebalance and reprioritise,” he said.

Giving a detailed brief on India’s security challenges, including combating cross-border terrorism, Gen Naravane said a strategy of “resolute punitive response” was put in place to deal with Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, noting that the policy of “zero tolerance” would continue to drive counter-terror measures.

“If Pakistan does not stop its policy of state-sponsored terrorism, we reserve the right to preemptively strike at sources of terror threat,” he said. — PTI

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Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 1

Newly-appointed Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on Wednesday said the armed forces stayed away from politics and worked as per the directives of the government, amid allegations that the forces were being politicised.

Laying down his tasks, General Rawat said they had to find ways of doing theatre commands without copying the Western models and strive for completing the jointness and integration of the services as mandated within the three-year timeline set by the government.

He inspected a tri-services guard of honour outside the South Block where the three service chiefs were present. The CDS will be the head of the newly created Department of Military Affairs (DMA). The three services will be under the DMA for matters of military like procurement, logistics, training, transport and maintenance.

On being asked as to how will he complete the mandate of having theatre commands as the IAF, in the past, opposed it, General Rawat told the media, “There are methods of doing theatres, we need not copy the western system. We will work out a system of our own.”

When asked if India would retain its current 19 commands or merge them, the CDS said, “That is something we have to study. We will surely come up with a mechanism that suits the Indian system.”

On the government setting a three-year timeline for integration, is it possible to do it in three years or more time was needed, General Rawat said, “I will say it is possible. I cannot say we give up. The government has said three years, so we will strive to achieve it in three years.”

On the role of the CDS, he said, “I can assure that the Army, the IAF and the Navy will work as a team. The CDS will only keep control; it is not that the CDS will want to run a force on his own.”

On how he felt as CDS, the General pointed towards his new military cap saying, “I am wearing a peaked cap after 42 years. The last I wore this was when I passed out of the IMA. The Gorkha tilted hat is gone. This shows the CDS will remain neutral within the service and to all three services.”

The General said all three services could not work on the formula that the sum total of three energies translated into “only three”.  The total of energies had to be much more, maybe five or seven, meaning multiplication, he added.

The forces, he said, had to have best economical use of resources as they focused on integration. “We can do training jointly. Procurement procedure can be made uniform.”

Washington, December 31

The US has congratulated General Bipin Rawat on his appointment as India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, saying this will help “catalyse” greater defence cooperation between the two countries.

Gen Rawat was on Monday appointed to the post with a mandate to bring in convergence in functioning of the Army, the Navy and the Indian Air Force and bolster the country’s military prowess.

“Congrats to General Bipin Rawat” on his appointment as India’s first-ever Chief of Defence Staff, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice G Wells said in a tweet on Monday soon after his elevation.

“The position will help catalyse greater US-India ‘joint’ cooperation between our militaries as discussed at recent 2+2, including through joint exercises and info sharing,” Wells said.

Defence to defence cooperation between the two countries have increased tremendously in the last decade and a half.

However, the highest level of interaction between the two countries had not been happening frequently because of lack of protocol in the sense of absence of an equivalent of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The current position in the US is being held by Gen Mark A Milley.

The appointment of Gen Rawat as the first Chief of Defence Staff is expected to increase interaction between the top military leadership of India and the US. — PTI

Given the border dispute with China and President Xi Jinping’s declaration that not an inch of Chinese territory would be forsaken, India has a major problem at hand. To be sure, India’s major threat is not terrorism or Pakistan. It is the PLA — whose capabilities are not adequately understood — and interoperability (ability to fight together against common enemy) between the PLA and Pakistan military

Pravin Sawhney
Strategic Affairs Expert

For all the hype around the elevation of General Bipin Rawat as India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), the bitter truth is, it will not help in war preparedness. The CDS is likely to prepare the military to fight the wrong enemy, the wrong war, with wrong procurements, training and mindset. While it might help the Modi government politically, it would make India weak militarily.

As CDS, Gen Rawat would head the newly-created Department of Military Affairs (DMA), the fifth department in the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The other four are the departments of Defence, Research and Development, Production and Supplies, and Finance. The Defence Secretary will coordinate the activities of all five. Moreover, under the Government of India Rules of Business 1961, he will continue to be responsible for the defence of India.

By making a four-star and not a five-star CDS (as was recommended by the 2002 Group of Ministers’ report headed by Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani), the Modi government has (a) ensured civilian control of defence ministry; (b) obviated (unfounded) fear of a military coup by a powerful CDS; (c) fulfilled the longstanding demand of CDS; and (d) retained Gen Rawat.

The twin-hatter CDS — as head of the Integrated Defence Headquarters (IDHQs) and permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) — will have four jobs. One, he will be answerable to the Defence Minister, like other secretaries in the MoD, along with the Defence Secretary. Two, on the military side, as head of the COSC, he would be the first among equals whose advice would be binding on the Services Chiefs. Three, he would do all that IDHQs had been doing — raised in 2001, the IDHQs have come a long way, performing a range of tasks, including procurements — better with his raised status and authority.

General Rawat’s fourth and most important task would be ‘facilitation of reconstructing of military or integrated theatre commands in three years. This is a problem area with deep implications. Given the uninspiring indigenous defence industrial base, frugal defence allocations, heavy dependence on imports and military lines to protect, tying down of limited military assets— especially belonging to the Air Force — in integrated theatre commands without proper assessment that it meets real threats and future warfare needs, would be disastrous.

Focussed on Pakistan, General Rawat believes the Indian military should prepare for hybrid warfare comprising the entire spectrum of war from sub-conventional (counter-terror) to conventional to nuclear level, to cyber war to psychological war to information (perception management) war, and so on. Speaking at the ‘Army Technology Seminar’ on December 23, he said: “While non-contact war will help give advantage, the man on the ground (soldier) will remain relevant.” He added, “Quantum, space, cyber and artificial intelligence (AI) need to be leveraged in defence ecosystem.” He is certainty not talking about the war that PLA — our main adversary — is furtively preparing itself for and giving sleepless nights to the powerful US military.

The PLA is preparing for conventional war which is transforming from real battlefields to virtual battlespace. There would be AI-backed intelligent computers (capable of learning, reacting and problem-solving in fog of war better than humans) embedded in unmanned systems on land, air and sea. These intelligent and autonomous systems will communicate with one another in real time through networks which will be hugely vulnerable to cyber and electronic warfare. Given this, small networks supported by cloud architecture (with advanced computing powers) and data would be preferred to large networks in theatre commands. Jointness will give way to diverse small unmanned missions.

PLA’s Strategic Support Force (SSF), created in 2015 and comprising cyber, electronic warfare, space and psychological warfare, will have the capability to end war before it starts. The SSF will destroy network nodes making communication on battlefields unsustainable. PLA’s humongous cyber-attack capabilities could start war instantly, without warning, involving whole of the nation by shutting down all computer and telecommunication-connected commercial enterprises, creating havoc. So, cyber and space are not force multipliers, as Gen Rawat believes, but a potent force in new warfare.

There will be fewer humans and more machines fighting war. The intelligent cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles will be capable of reasoning on their own such that they would be able to change mission mid-course to hit a more dangerous target. At a panel discussion on ‘AI in future warfare’ at the 9th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing recently, the consensus was that the character of warfare would alter dramatically. In the next decade or so, by the time India’s integrated theatre (military) commands fructify and all Integrated Battle Groups (brainchild of General Rawat) become operational, the war would have changed: from information to intelligent warfare. It would be both a non-contact and software-driven invisible war, with few or no soldiers, all by 2035.

The word ‘quantum’ that General Rawat used casually is a different ballgame. It would propel warfare to the next level — from intelligent to quantum warfare where China has invested more finances and effort in quantum sciences (including computers) than the US. In quantum warfare, things will be superimposed — one thing will exist at two places at the same time. Sounds unbelievable, that is what it would be by 2040.

Indian military is oblivious to all this because it has been fighting terrorism since 1990, a war it cannot win. Given the border dispute with China and President Xi Jinping’s declaration that not an inch of Chinese territory would be forsaken, India has a major problem at hand. To be sure, India’s major threat is not terrorism or Pakistan. It is the PLA — whose capabilities are not adequately understood — and interoperability (ability to fight together against common enemy) between the PLA and Pakistan military.

The PLA — focussed on the US military — started conceptualising its military reforms from 2010, and finally announced them in 2015. In India, without a clear understanding of threats and future warfare, work to raise integrated theatre commands has begun with General Rawat as the CDS. Everything else, from joint procurements, training, logistics and operations will not amount to future war preparedness, which is what the CDS is meant to deliver. In any case, General Rawat’s focus — since he is a counter-terror expert — will be on sub-conventional war. This will help the government which has declared terrorism as a threat to India. But it will not make India militarily strong.