India must be prepared to fight short and long duration wars: CDS Gen Anil Chauhan citing terror, land disputes

Mumbai: India should be prepared to fight short-duration, high-intensity conflicts to deter terrorism, something like Operation Sindoor, and long duration conflict because of the territorial disputes with its neighbours, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan said on Monday. Speaking at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Gen Chauhan said multi-domain operations will no longer be an option but a necessity, where the effects of one domain will be immediately felt on to the other.

"What kind of threats and challenges should India be prepared for? This should be based on two facts. Both our adversaries — one is a nuclear weapon state and one is a nuclear armed state — hence we should not allow that level of deterrence to be breached," he said without naming Pakistan or China.

He said India has territorial disputes with both its neighbours.

"We should be prepared to fight short duration, high intensity conflicts to deter terrorism, something like Operation Sindoor. We should be prepared for a land centric, long duration conflict because we have land disputes. Yet, we should try and avoid it," the CDS said.

The country’s top military officer stressed the need to exploit new domains and create asymmetry with a weaker adversary and yet not allow these asymmetries to be exploited by other nations.

Terrorism and grey zone warfare will remain a threat, which requires defensive as well as offensive response, he added.

Chauhan spoke about modern warfare being at a cusp of a third revolution in military affairs which he termed as convergence warfare.

This is happening because a number of technologies are simultaneously affecting the nature and character of warfare, he added.

Earlier a few technologies were influencing how wars are fought. Now it could be a number of technologies. AI, Quantum, edge computing, hypersonic, advanced material, robotics, he added.

He said multi-domain operations will no longer be an option but a necessity where the effects of one domain will be immediately felt on to the other domain.

"This was clearly visible in Operation Sindoor. In a war which lasted only about four days giving India decisive victory, all domains of warfare were used simultaneously with great amount of tempo," he said.

Multi-domain operations will also require multi-domain capabilities and cross domain command and control, he said.

This will require extensive coordination and control between the Army, Navy and Air Force, but also cyber forces, space forces and forces operating in the cognitive domain, he asserted.

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 to avenge the terror attack in Pahalgam on April 22, leading to the deaths of 26 persons. India inflicted heavy damage on the terror infrastructure located in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and Pakistan. Both countries agreed on cessation of hostilities on May 10.